Justin, you need to consider all the use cases and if the modules can tie into folders for each user. It isn't enough just to create the folder, everything that access the folder needs to be adjusted for this (a gallery module, an HTML Provider, a profile avatar control, etc.). It would be easy enough to create a profile control that creates this folder then adds to it, or do it in the HTML Provider, for example (but again you face the problem I mentioned before). 

As for the image uploader, when you upload it via the DNN API it will store some details as well as potentially the file in the database. For picture specific properties, some of this information is stored in the digital picture itself via EXIF (Exchangeable Image File) data (you can check out the core gallery module for how it uses this). 

I hear you Justin, we all have to work within budget constraints.