Neither HttpHandler nor HttpApplication is getting called for /

Question

I have an IHttpHandler registered like this:

    <httpHandlers>
        <add verb="*" path="*" type="MindTouch.Dream.Http.HttpHandler, mindtouch.core"/>
    </httpHandlers>

Which catches /foo, /foo/bar, etc. just fine, but on / the Visual Studio built-in server does not hit hit either the HttpApplication or my handler.