I found your post when trying to get audio issues worked out with Skype.  I am also running Fedora 9, and I have PulseAudio selected in the GStreamer Properties for sound in and out.  I can only get audio working with the default device selection.  If I select Pulse at all it doesn't work.  If I select the default device, then things work until I play a Flash video (Flash 10), then it stops working.

 I tried your changes (I already had the groups for my user), so I just changed the daemon configuration changes.  I cannot get any sound at all with pulse.  Any ideas?