non english problems with v 1.3.8

Hi, I'm italian and using zen-cart localized.
me and other italian zen-cart users are having serious problems with the email system.

It seems that the italian community was not aware of some changes.
First of all, I discovered a new way of retrieving paths to email templates.
Now there is a new var, the $langfolder var.

So I understood that we had to create another folder in the email folder, called "it" (language code for italian).
Now, finally, zen-cart finds the templates and is able to send again html format emails.
But there is another bad problem. we can't find the solution. I tried to change charsets, collation, and so on, but plain text emails have always a "?" in place of the euro currencies symbol. Not only, if I change in the admin panel the appropriate field (susbtitute currencies symbols) and put whatever letter I want (thus a simple char), like "p" or "e", in place of this letter I have always a "?" in text emails.

So I'm going to ask: sincee there was a change in the email system, is there something else we need to know to have plain text emails working?
Thanks in advance.