what exactly are you trying to do?
instead of \newifs have you considered using toggles (see the etoolbox
package), they can also be used without
it is rather simple
\def\tgl{00} % true
\def\tgl{01} % false
\if\tgl true \else false \fi
then one might get past some of these problems
(I rather like the interface provided by etoolbox)
--
/daleif