I use D6 with filefield, imagefield, imagefield_paths, token, cck. I create a new content type with two imagefields with a default image.
Now every time I test it http://pastebin.com/EXf2R5dA. In fact, token uses drupal_clone then node_view to generates tokens without touching the original object. But in this case it changes.
Do anyone knows what happens? $items in the patch is an array (and is genenated in content_token_values() in cck/includes/content.token.inc).