For the second example, thats not really how the libraries work. The quality is applied when a save(), save_pa(), or output() is called, so if anything I should add the quality to those functions. quality(50) is to similar to config('quality', 50) for me to justify the extra code. So maybe:
function output($ext, $quality);
function save($filename, $quality, $permissions);
function save_pa($append, $prepend, $quality, $permissions);
Also, I'll look into the bug you told me on irc last night.
Anybody having problems with the GD powered resize method? The input image is 800px wide and should be resized to 200px. The resize goes find, the end result is indeed 200px wide but the image is very blurry, pixely.