Mmmm / #3809

I understand, but really you can't talk of a translation while keeping dates in English. Project management is all about dates! I don't think about this as a "new feature", at least it won't be perceived like that from the end-user.
Anyway, you're the boss.
Apart from ditching the whole stuff, we have two more options:

1. make FORCE_LOCALE = "C" by default and change the implementation so that in that case it reverts to the old behaviour (with date() instead of gmstrftime()). With this change people using locales will do so at their own risk.
2. implement our own gmstrftime-like function, using translation tables for weekdays and months. It's actually not that hard. We just need 21 more localized strings (12 months + 7 weekdays + am/pm), not a big deal.

If you agree, I can make the changes in the next few days. As a quick (and dirty) fix for the %e problem, maybe just using %d instead of %e might work.