Sneaky Windows hides undeleted files?

Samurai's cleaning question earlier on got me doing some computer housekeeping and I've just noticed a couple of things.

I have WinXP Professional with SP2 installed. IE was not open while I was doing this.

First off, the relocation or mirror thing...
I noticed while poking around my temp folder was that my IE cache appeared to have been moved from C:\Documents and Settings\<me>\Local Settings\Temporary Internet files\ (which exists) to C:\Documents and Settings\<me>\Local Settings\Temp\Temporary Internet files\. Also, it was 108MB in size yet I always change the cache size to 20MB when I setup a machine.
Now, I know that I had noticed this relocation before and specified the normal default directory in Internet Options but put it down to SP2 and went to change it again; I was a bit surprised to see the default directory, not the one in use, in the properties box, so I affirmed it's location and emptied the cache on the way out.
Checking the new (wrong) location I found the Temporary Internet Files folder still there but empty, then went to where they should be stored and found cookies and a load of images (from this site).
So that's an oddity that I don't understand the point of.

Second, the hidden undeleted files...
After emptying the cache and finding there were still files in the cache location I had specified, I decided to go back and empty it again, but before hitting the button I clicked on View Files, to be presented with the specified folder containing only cookies... when I had another window open showing the exact same location with images in it - and they persisted after refreshing the folder.

I don't know if this means anything serious but I can't see the point of either of these quirks.
Any ideas?

Smurfette, are you using more than one browser ? Just checking out the locations, and I too have both locations. However, one seems to be for IE only, ( ther directory C:\Documents and Settings\<me>\Local Settings\Temp\Temporary Internet files\)so I assume the other is firefox.... also, I never use iE much anymore, and those files have not been modified since 9-22-04... :unsure:

I installed Firefox a few days ago but many of the the persistent files are dated before the installation.

BTW, FF is looking a lot better than it did the last time I checked it out, even the cursor obscures the last letter typed into a textbox issue I had is gone, but I'm not entirely sure about it yet.