PHPZend, MVC Web Application and Apache Rewrite issue

I'm in the process of building an MVC web application using the Zend framework and I've encountered an odd problem.

If I have the httpd.conf VirtualHost section and the web site's root .htaccess file configured one way, Apache does not read the index.php file (i.e. www[dot]mywebsite[dot]com/ fails), writes nothing to the rewrite log and places this error in the general error log file:

Options FollowSymLinks or SymLinksIfOwnerMatch is off which implies that RewriteRule directive is forbidden: /hg/software/cims/src/public/

Yet, again with the same httpd.conf and .htaccess settings, I can get to my login screen (i.e. www[dot]mywebsite[dot]com/account/login succeeds) and there is plenty of information in the rewrite log.

However, if I move the .htaccess rewrite commands to the Directory block under VirtualHost and set AllowOverride to "None", the reverse happens. Apache reads and displays index.php (i.e. www[dot]mywebsite[dot]com/ succeeds), but it does not take me to the login screen and attempts to directly access the login screen fail (i.e. www[dot]mywebsite[dot]com/account/login fails).

Thee relevant settings for the first error condition:

httpd.conf:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteLog /hg/hgweb/logs/appdev_rewrite.log
RewriteLogLevel 1

<VirtualHost *:80>
    SetEnv ETSSERVER mywebsite
    SetEnv VHOST appdev
    SetEnv APPLICATION_ENV development
    ServerName appdev
    ServerAlias appdev.mywebsite.com
    ServerPath /hg/software/appdev/src/public/
    DocumentRoot /hg/software/appdev/src/public/
    ErrorLog /hg/hgweb/logs/appdev_error.log
    CustomLog /hg/hgweb/logs/appdev_access.log common
    <Directory />
        Options Indexes FollowSymLinks SymLinksIfOwnerMatch
        AllowOverride All
        Order Allow,Deny
        Allow from All
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

.htaccess:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -s [OR]开发者_Python百科
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -l [OR]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} -d
RewriteRule ^.*$ - [NC,L]
RewriteRule ^.*$ index.php [NC,L]

Any insight into what may be causing this is greatly appreciated.