BUG #5092: to_ascii(); ascii() don't work with bytea

The following bug has been logged online:

Bug reference:      5092
Logged by:          Dan French
Email address:      Bomarc_com@yahoo.com
PostgreSQL version: 8.4
Operating system:   Windows 2003
Description:        to_ascii(); ascii() don't work with bytea
Details:

Version 8.4
#1: bytea_string = '"0"'  (table; bytea)
Function:
   trim('"' both from bytea_string)
 fails and returns: '"0'

#2: Come on folks:  Bytea is a series of bytes.  Conversion to ASCII is not
this difficult; and should (does) not require explicit type casts (esp since
they are already in ASCII)

SELECT  ID, details_map,
      --date_part('hour', interval
      -- cast (
      trim(both '"' from
      to_ascii (
      encode(convert_to(
{bytea starts here}
    substring(...))...

Result (variations) include:
ERROR: function ascii(bytea) does not exist
ERROR: function convert_to(bytea) does not exist