Re: Rationale for aligning data on even bytes in a Unix shell file?

One can treat them as UTF-8, which is generally the case.   In which case
your objections about 'garbage' in a different locale are pointless.
UTF-8 fonts are universal.  The currently locale doesn't matter.

Windows, on the other hand, limits the character set to those that can
be described in 16-bit units, and the "locale" matters for not only
display purposes, but also for character processing.