I have created a new custom master page & I've got everything working (including showing the QuickLinks on the left on default.aspx & any "built in" SharePoint pages, such as "Shared Documents". Unfortunately, when I create a new "Web Part" page, the navigation goes away!
This is driving me crazy & I'm hoping you Share Point studs over here can help me out.
Per default, web part pages do not show the Quick Launch. You have to manually edit the web part page in SharePoint Designer (if you do not have access to SharePoint Designer, you can download the web part page and do the necessary changesw in notepad).
Here's a detailed description for SP 2007: http://community.bamboosolutions.com/blogs/bambooteamblog/archive/2008/04/30/here-quick-lauch-bar-quick-launch-bar-here-quick-launch-bar-now-where-could-it-have-gone.aspx
I guess this should work similar in SharePoint 2010.
