I thought the standard "notes and attachments" section inherited the permissions from the object its under. For instance, I have "Create" permission attributed to the Account object and I have able to create new accounts, however I cannot create a new note. I get the "Insufficient privileges error" (You do not have the level of access necessary to perform the operation you requested. Please contact the owner of the record or your administrator if access is necessary. For more information, see Insufficient Privileges Errors. )
Am I missing something obvious?