I ran into the same problems with a new install of 0.7.1.1 — then found your query here with its less than satifactory suggested cure and tired something else without change my E_ALL:
In b2template.functions.php, I dropped use of references (&) on the variables:
lines: 834 and 846 &$cat_name
lines 1016, 1017, 1018 &$comment
and the errors went away. Now I’m off to find out if I actually changed the functionality ir if this was simply old-style code as duggested by the error msg text.
I liked your dentist analogy.
