I had all kinds of trouble with permisions for /.rockbox. I wondered why someone would put user files in the root directory. It turns out they didn't put files in the root directory. The /.rockbox files files are mapped to /usr/local/share/rockbox.
I put this line in app_open function printf("Special file %s\n Real %s\n\n", path, realpath); and got:
Special file /.rockbox/wps/cabbiev2.wps
Real /usr/local/share/rockbox/wps/cabbiev2.wps
It is late so I haven't tried removing /.rockbox. yet. More questions later. I have to see how sys call open was overridden by app_open. You learn something every day, I guess.