Your code looks pretty solid, perhaps if you just tried to register one sidebar and see if that works. If that works, just keep adding code until you see where you made a mistake. May be a bit time consuming, but I think you will find where the problem is lying this way. Sorry I couldn’t be more help than this.
What kind of function are you using to get the ‘custom widget area’ or dynamic sidebar? Are you using something like this:
if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'before_widget' => '',
'after_widget' => '',
'before_title' => '',
'after_title' => '<div class="clear"></div>',
'name' => 'sidebar'
));
To register it, than this to call it in your sidebar.php file?
<?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar')
|| !dynamic_sidebar('sidebar') ) : ?>
<!-- default content -->
<?php endif; ?>
