gettext not suitable, UTF-8 not functioning well enough

Please read the discussion at http://mantis.frontaccounting.com/view.php?id=4903 and answer here.

If UTF-8 is really a big problem for someone then why is there no option for choosing that other version and still having UTF-8 as the default setting?

Instead of "gettext", we could build our own translation system that's context-based and where every translatable phrase has its unique identifier. I've built such a system once, it's not rocket science. And it doesn't need additional software as "gettext" does.