Sweet, glad it's working.
I called a colleague in Server management and got his help brainstorming solutions.
In easy to understand terms: Previously I was trying to add functionality to the forum software, the new solution was to teach the server where the forum lives how to rotate ios images.
Technical Jargon warning: Previously, I had been trying to install software onto the website that facilitated detection of hidden image metadata (EXIF) and then image rotation to compensate for the rotation data.
Instead, he pointed me towards software that can be installed at the server level that allows all PHP driven sites on the server to detect and interprit that EXIF metadata.
Either way, glad it's working now.
We still did lose some historical images due to this issue, but I can rest well knowing that I will never have to deal with that again.
JW