Description Field Problems

Recently my description field on Images in the ImageField has stopped being shown with the image.

I had been using this field for the alt tag and as a visual description under the image. This behavior was implemented in a node template file in the following way:

<?php if ($node->field_lead_image[0]['filepath'] != null): ?>
<div id="newsbrief-image"><img src="../../<?php print $node->field_lead_image[0]['filepath']; ?>" alt="<?php print $node->field_lead_image[0]['data']['description']; ?>" /><br /><?php print $node->field_lead_image[0]['data']['description'];?></div><?php endif; ?>

Unfortunately I didn't notice the exact moment this stopped working, but I have read this thread: http://drupal.org/node/296441 and it's implication that the description field was altered in the Alpha 2 release, and my updating to this does coincide with the problem.

Using the code
<pre><?php print_r($node); ?>
I have been able to see the description field is now blank, however, looking at the database I can see the following column in the table for the node type: field_lead_image_data which holds the value: a:1:{s:11:"description";s:20:"Beijing Olympic Logo";}

I did run the update.php and cleared cache etc, but it seems there is now no way of referencing the description field in the node output.

I have also tried setting alt tag and title tag to being custom, but for some reason this only affects adding images to an already existing node and creating a new node these options aren't shown! (Maybe another issue entirely).

Is there anyway i can use the description info I've already added to many images or is this now no longer supported? Should I just try going back to Alpha 1?

Thanks
S

PS. Using CCK rc6 currently not the new rc7 - will that affect this?