I think that is very important to allow this to users:

If html allowed or (code ubb), when posting an image, besides getting prompted for image url, the user should also get prompted for desired alignment.

The current way image always looks centered below wording, where placed. It looks so nice when image is wrapped around text. And that could be achieved vy simply doing this:
align=right>

Can a hack not be made to do this?

If html is allowed then you should be able to specify alignment, we do in our ezine we publish yearly