gallery 2.3 and wordpress 2.8.5

i create a new post using my admin acct, and link a picture, no problem. i use a test acct, created with author rights and the picture is a number, if i elevate the test acct to editor and create a link using g2 to an image, it will show up, so why is it that editor and admins are the only ones that can link pictures into wordpress blog?

not to mention that if you use IE, and post an image from g2 using wpg2, and change the "how to insert image" you get script errors due to old functions which IE doesn't support now.

and finally, i am running w2k3 iis6/fastcgi/php 5.2.10. I am just starting out and want to know, should i not bother and just build a *nix VM and start using that so i can use gallery3 when it is available.