ok i know your not supposed to do this, but i did it before i read not to, IS THIS BAD? i havent had any issues at all and there are about 300 pics in there on one of my installs of coppermine, I was running 1.2.1 and just upgraded to 1.3.1
should i fix this or just leave it as it is?
Leave them alone. From now on when uploading via FTP, upload into a new directory (for example, /uploads) in the /albums directory.
If you ever have to re-add the images in the /userpics directory to the CPG database, you'll have to move them out of that directory into the /uploads directory.