Thanks for your replies.

I've been running into error after error trying to get things going here, but there are just too many incompatibilities to make it worthwhile.
I use os x and the server is some linux variant and there's no libgd on my machine just for starters.
I was hoping just to "tap" into the current libgd installation by localizing and uploading a GD library, but unfortunately for me it's not that simple. I'm also a bit aprehensive about contaminating my local development platform with uneccessary/experimental installations.

The hosting company is far from substandard, and has been highly recommended by several colleagues - none of which have needed thumbnail generation! I'm going to try some experiments via exec and system commands directly to the libraries present. Maybe I'll have more success with this.

Thanks anyway!