HttpContext.Current.Session is null when routing requests

Without routing, HttpContext.Current.Session is there so I know that the StateServer is working. When I route my requests, HttpContext.Current.Session is null in the routed page. I am using .NET 3.5 sp1 on IIS 7.0, without the MVC previews. It appears that AcquireRequestState is never fired when using the routes and so the session variable isn’t instantiated/filled.

Static fields vs Session variables

So far I’ve been using Session to pass some variables from one page to another. For instance user role. When a user logs in to the web application the role id of the user is kept in Session and that role is checked at different parts of the application. I’ve recently started thinking why not use static members instead. I can store the same information in a static field and easily access it anywhere in my application (well anywhere the namespace in which that static field resides is included.) I know that using Session variables comes handy sometimes, such that:

Why HttpContext.Current.Session is null in Global.asax?

I’m using VS2010 and created a simple asp. web forms application, using Development Server to test it.
I try to store user data – queried from sql server – in the session, since I don’t want to access database in every request. I’m using the ‘Application_AuthenticateRequest’ and the ‘Session_Start’ methods.
First round:
AuthenticateRequest called. The following code ran: