Another host to add to the list of those not allowing changes to .htaccess file permissions is Webline Services http://webline-services.com/. To be fair, I haven’t tried asking them, as I am about to move my http://www.propertyforsalespain.co.uk/ website to a new host anyway. I have for the moment got around the 404 error by deactivating root folder bullet proof mode and wp-admin folder via BPS Security/htaccess Core in Admin.
Regards
Andrew