A lot of us know the problem that you need to change the permissions for some upload folder (for example) to "777". Without this "risky" permission setting some upload or file function will not work on many web server configurations.
I recognized the same problem on some of my hosting accounts and I think I found a workaround:
Just login to your hosting control panel and add the folder with standard permission (755) via the file-manager. This works for me on a DirectAdmin web host.