It's still that unfortunately, as best I can tell.
I sort of remember someone talking about a workaround by changing the parameter for where the avatar is, but that was with a web server.
I planned to tackle this myself by having my scripting which pulls pictures for avatars generate one based on the user's initials, back when Jabber only showed a silhouette. The client then eventually updated to do this itself and I put that on the way back burner. That's the only other way I can think of to force it forward. If the avatar changes, it will update it eventually when refreshing the contact but it will not remove it, it seems.
