Problems with IPFW and 5.3-BETA1

I upgraded a remote dedicated server from 5.1 to 5.3-BETA1 today with a
step by step procedure described in /usr/src/Makefile and everything
went ok.  Well, almost. I compiled the kernel (took the GENERIC conf
from 5.3, so options PFIL_HOOKS is already there) with:

options         IPFIREWALL
options         IPFIREWALL_VERBOSE
options         IPFIREWALL_VERBOSE_LIMIT=100

put firewall_enable="YES", firewall_type="open" in rc.conf, rebooted and
locked myself out (world and kernel are in sync, before someone asks).
After I could access the box again I tried to see what was wrong:

root_at_wesside:~# ipfw show
00100 0 0 allow ip from any to any
65535 0 0 deny ip from any to any
root_at_wesside:~# ping yahoo.com
PING yahoo.com (66.94.231.98): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.94.231.98: icmp_seq=0 ttl=58 time=3.324 ms
64 bytes from 66.94.231.98: icmp_seq=1 ttl=54 time=5.138 ms
64 bytes from 66.94.231.98: icmp_seq=2 ttl=58 time=3.671 ms
^C
--- yahoo.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 3.324/4.044/5.138/0.786 ms
root_at_wesside:~# ipfw show
00100 0 0 allow ip from any to any
65535 0 0 deny ip from any to any

Why aren't the packet and byte counters increased?

Since the firewall was totally unresponsive to any rulset changes I
removed above options from the kernel and decided to try the module
instead. With firewall_type="open" left in rc.conf (but firewall_enable
changed to "NO") I executed 
`kldload /boot/kernel/ipfw.ko && sh /etc/rc.firewall ; sleep 100 ; 
kldunload ipfw ; sleep 200 ; reboot` and locked myself out again. I
don't know what really happend and am still waiting for the reply from
the support team of the hosting company, but is it me or there's
something wrong with ipfw?  Anyone else seeing this?

I'd appreciate any pointers.

-Radek