Just a potentially helpful thought:
Restart httpd. You can use the `httpd xxx` way (with xxx=shutdown/start IIRC) or as root, find the first httpd process id with `ps aux |` (probably owned by someone other than nobody) and then do a `kill -USR1 nnnnn` where the n's are the process id. It'll restart in place and regrab httpd.conf ... I hope the problem was that simple. TTFN & Shalom.

-PipTigger