$pager fights with Search Results $pager

I don't see how changing $pager to $aspager would change anything, as the $pager variable is local to Activity Stream. What's happening here is Drupal's pager uses a query string variable to keep track of which pager was clicked if you have multiple pagers on a page. theme_pager uses a parameter called $element that a module developer can use as an ID to distinguish their pager from the others on the page.

Unfortunately, this ID is required to be unique, an integer, and sequential. The built-in pager is 0. In practice this ID is all but useless.

I set Activity Stream's to 1, and there's another module using 1, it's not unique, so neither pager will display.

I set Activity Stream to 5, and there's no modules setting 1-4, it's not sequential, so the pager will not display.

I set Activity Stream to "activitystream" and it's not an integer, so you'll get fatal errors.

If Drupal provided a registry of all IDs, that would work, since a module could just check and see what IDs are already in use and increment by one. Or, heck, Drupal could skip with the $element altogether and just keep track itself. Or probably best would be to allow text for IDs, so modules could use their names as the pager ID.

The end result is, there's really no way to use two modules on the same page that both have a pager. One or both pagers will not appear.

Will reexamine if it ever shows up in Drupal 7.