Category description getting cleared

[balihr]

Vanilla 1.5.7c install

Trying to add a category description that would be a simple img tag. ie

<img src="images/my_category.jpg">

After saving, the category description is blank and nothing is stored in the database.
Adding some text together with the img tag seems to work - adding

blah blah <img src="images/my_category.jpg">

works and gets added to database.

I've pinpointed this to admin/categories.php on line 147:

$sql_data_array = [
          'categories_name' => zen_db_prepare_input($categories_name_array[$language_id]),
          'categories_description' => empty(trim(strip_tags($categories_description_array[$language_id]))) ? '' : zen_db_prepare_input($categories_description_array[$language_id])
        ];

Is there something I'm not seeing here, some specific reason why we're not allowing just an image as category description? Wouldn't it be more user-friendly to throw a warning instead of just strip it all down without notice? I understand such a "description" isn't the optimal choice, but sometimes it's all you have and all you need...