I am officially out of ideas on this one as to how to fix it.  What I would recommend though, is if you cannot get the starter kit to work, use the install version.  It is relatively easy to do this, download the install version, unzip it to a directory, open a website, point the directory at the unzip file location, and open it.  I have always had the same functionality with the install, this is possibly because older versions of the starter kit have been installed correctly, and I find the installs are more stable over time. 

The only reason I don't think it is the starter kit itself is I have had it up and running without any problems from the day it was released, be they may have made changes after I got a hold of it and that could be why it is working. Hope this helps and good luck. 

I downloaded the latest DNN starter kit (4.5.2 release 5/29/07).  The same issue exists for DNN 4.5.2 =(

Did you hear back from the authors?