I don't think there is confusion at my end. I agree with George.

The 'solution' posted does two things triggered by cron.

1. Deletes the log files
2. Clears some of the older files from the actual image cache.

1 is a bad idea because the log files are there for a good reason. If your site is creating errors you really want to sort that out not just delete the messages. A process that you went through I believe successfully, George. If the character encoding is causing a problem with html_entities then there are ways of getting around that. This is not really a Zen issue but is a php issue.

2. Is a bad idea because it makes image handler a bit pointless and increases server load during customer page load.

If your hosting is not large enough to store all the cached images then you need to get larger hosting. Or alternatively not use image handler and let the images be re-sized client-side.