qtconfig only remembers changes in settings when run through sudo

I've encountered a very odd issue with qtconfig that has not only been occurring on my distro, but on others' ones as well.

• Logged on as a regular user, NO root rights.
• I wanted to change the look & feel of SoulseekQT, a file-sharing application based on QT. I learned that this has to be done through qtconfig. So I did the changes I wanted to do in qtconfig and saved.
• I forgot one setting and re-run qtconfig.
• I frowned: no settings I previously made seemed to have been recorded!

• Then, just getting desperate, I ran a 'sudo qtconfig' for the fun of it. And voila, my settings made under my REGULAR user ID were there!
• But ./SoulseekQT did not work under my regular user account either.
• I had to do a 'sudo SoulseekQT' to get my modifications (through qtconfig) applied in the app.

This CAN'T be correct behavior! Neatly saving the config file every time in my $HOME (~/.config/Trolltech.conf) but needing sudo to get the changes applied?! And if that was not enough, the application always needs to be run through sudo itself too otherwise changes will be ignored as well!

More interesting reads here:
http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2011/11/20/%23kubuntu.txt
(cf. dialog of users noaXess_kubuntu and Peace)

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1109183 (2009 forum post, but still not fixed in 4.7.4)
http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=83631&p=212700#p212700 (contains posts from 3 yesrs ago up to present day)