HttpContext.Current.Profile null when used as a ProfileService and not setting the properties in the web.config (cross post to stackoverflow)

I posted a question to stackoverflow but I would like to also post here just so it does not get missed. I will update both if an answer is found. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22233357/httpcontext-current-profile-null-when-used-as-a-profileservice-and-not-setting-t
I have an ASP.NET application that exposes a profile service. The service is working fine when I have the "properties" tag hard coded into the web.config file. The ProfileProvider GetPropertyValues gets called and I am able to set the values for the properties. Now we have a requirement to remove all the "properties" from the web.config and place them into a class. I created a class called "CustomProfile" and inherit from System.Web.Profile.ProfileBase I then removed the "properties" from the web.config and added inheri ...