Actually, iCal doesn't properly delete events automatically -- I discovered this bug when I started to synching to a Windows Mobile phone and it filled up my calendar with events dating back to 2002, or thereabouts.

It's abundantly documented on the Apple boards and the only way to really delete events is, in fact, to list them all and then sort by date to get at the oldest ones.

That's not a bug. I use that feature all the time. I don't want to delete every occurrence when I delete an event. I just want to delete the ones I select. It makes sense that if you want to delete your selection, you're only deleting your selection. If you want to delete each occurrence, select each occurrence. Though I'll admit, it would be nice if it prompted you in every deletion instance how much you'd like to delete. It only gives you the delete all option when you select the first event.