[eluser]andreagam[/eluser]
Kvait, that's the trick!
In fact, it seems that when PHP is attempting to compare the string ("NOT_ACTIVATED") to an integer (1), it converts the string into an integer which ends up satisfying the first case.
So, while we're waiting for an official fix by Popcorn (that sure will be a more elegant one), we can substitute the switch statement with a series of if...
(Kvait, FYI using OSX, MAMP, CI 1.6.3 - PHP 5.2.5 - MySQL 5.0.41 )
Thanks, mates