the tradeoff with images is that the page takes a little longer to load

And the background will be cached in your local machine for the session, and if you are a regular visitor, probably for longer. If you are a frequent web user and have lots of spare disk space, try increasing the cache size in your browzer (US spelling - I'm learning), this can improve download performance. In IE its Tools/Internet Options and then the Settings for Temporary Files in the middle of the General Page. In Netscape, its Edit/Preferences/Advanced/Cache.

Rod