I’ve sort of read that during those times people wouldn’t dare to destroy ancient statues, because people thought they were possessed. Also during iconoclasm, the statue of Irene I mentioned was made by constantine VI, member of the isaurian dynasty and an iconoclast symphatiser. Since his father and grandfather was an iconoclast.

I suspect it has more to do with the 4th crusade and the post 4th crusade empire, as they had barely any money to maintain anything monumental and everything around them was crumbling.

Iconoclasm did not affect imperial images, it was only aimed at specifically religious images. Early Christianity did not really have many religious statues, that was more of a Medieval Catholic development. Early Christian art was usually in the form of icons, mosaics, frescoes etc. Statues were likely not a major target.