usb touchscreen breakage in 2.6.21-rc5-mm4 ?

I have an usb  touchscreen (egalax variety) that works with
the 2.6.18 kernel supplied by debian.

It fails when I compile 2.6.21-rc5-mm4, tuned to the machine
in question.  Unlike the debian kernel, this kernel don't use
modules in order to save boot time.

The strange thing is, 2.6.21-rc5-mm4 recognizes the device.
dmesg says things like 
usb 3-2: Manufacturer: eGalac Inc.
usb 3-2: Product: USB TouchController

and a lot more. Unlike 2.6.18, it never gets around to say
"usbcore: registered new driver usbtouchscreen"
which seems to indicate a problem.
usbcore registers several other drivers, such as usbserial and pl2303
that makes the gps work. It also registers other drivers like
usb-storage,usbfs,hub,libusual,hiddev,usbhid.  But not usbtouchscreen.
I believe I have turned on every config option for usb touchscreen,
this should not be missing.

Is there something wrong, or could there be a seemingly unrelated option
that I need to turn on?

Helge Hafting