What is the proper RewriteBase setting for my staged server? I'm having issues with Clean-URLs not working on my staged server, possibly stemming from the fact that the installation is pulled down from a Git repo, for staging. 

I suppose the .htaccess file is configured properly for my local installation, but not for the staged one which has a different file path. (http://drupal.org/node/1018346)

I have my drupal installation on my staged server (which is having the clean URLs problem) in this location:

/home/user/drupal_dev/www


And in my web server's /var directory, I set a symlink pointing to that www directory in my home. That way I don't have to worry about copying files into a root directory that requires sudo.

Can you offer suggestions on what my .htaccess file should look like, in regards to RewriteBase?
Unless you are running in a subcdirectory (eg, http://www.whatever.com/sub/directory/that/has/drupal/), you should use

RewriteBase /


RewriteBase is really used when you are doing rewrites from a directory that doesn't match your DocumentRoot.