Movable Type & The Magical Hidden .htaccess File

For some reason one of my hosts hides .htaccess files from FTP view. So when you go to add an .htaccess file you overwrite the hidden .htaccess file, and all is not well with MovableType. :(

MovableType tells you that you need to contact your host, since .htaccess is a host issue. Your host tells you that you should see the backup .htaccess file in your domain. Which is not true since they hide the .blah files.

Today has been lost in translation. But I do now know that

Options +ExecCGI
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl

is an important piece of Movable Type .htaccess code. So should customer support at Movable Type? And DreamHost should really tell you that the .blah files are hidden! Surprised I did not notice that until now.