Handling a 200 OK Error

Failing to find a simple download counter plugin that worked for me I wrote my own utilising the php header() function. However, this throws up a 200 OK error caused by the elseif in the function handle_404() (in classes.php).

Can anyone advise on what I need to do to avoid this? Or is simply commenting out the elseif in handle_404() the only way – and in turn, is that safe?