The code is mine; but I have no access to the Apache/PHP configs on the other server.
Things went as they do far too often sadly -- I mucked about with a basic script -- trying to reproduce the problem. Sessions seemed to work flawlessly there. So I took it my session handling functions were flawed. I fixed those up (none of the fixes should have caused anything near what I discribed in the first post), enaled register_globals (for which I'd written a workaround as well -- my scripts sadly rely on register globals but I had written some code to automatically register all REQUEST variables as globally available in case the server didn't support register_globals. Point is - it now works and I changed so much inbetween testing I haven't a clue which of the changes fixed the damn thing.
Anyhow, I'm flattered with the interest and would like to gracefully thank you all for your replies. May whatever God you believe in grant you whatever it is you wish for most -- except if it's total world domination or something of that kind.
Thanks again
and au revoir,
~ lhunath