It sounded like you were unsure if the Dynamic pages or the HTML pages were actually being served. That's why I suggested you modify an HTML page directly, visit your web browser and check to make sure the Static Publisher was or was not working.
If this is for your hosted site, not localhost, I think you need to put back your RewriteBase and use this exact code (at least that's what I did and it's working properly). I also left out the Config for Dev Environments (localhost). In martimiz's example, the default folder was changed from "cache" to "html-cache".
1.
### SILVERSTRIPE START ###
<Files *.ss>
Order deny,allow
Deny from all
Allow from 127.0.0.1
</Files>
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /looksmart
## CACHE CONFIG FOR TEST/LIVE ENVIRONMENTS ##
# Cached content - live webserver
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /(.*[^/])/?$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/%1.html -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule .* /cache/%1.html [L]
# Cached content - homepage
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/?$
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}/cache/index.html -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule .* /cache/index.html [L]
## DYNAMIC CONFIG ##
# Dynamic content
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(\.gif)|(\.jpg)|(\.png)|(\.css)|(\.js)|(\.php)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^(.*)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule .* sapphire/main.php?url=%1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]
</IfModule>
### SILVERSTRIPE END ###
2. Did you add this to your mysite > _config.php ?
Object::add_extension("SiteTree", "FilesystemPublisher('cache/', 'html')");
3. And it sounds like you have put the needed code into Page.php (//Return a list of all pages to cache... & //Get a list of URLs to cache related to this page)
4. And obviously you ran mysite.com/dev/buildcache or that cache folder wouldn't exist.