Giving the IMG tag a size will NOT reduce download time. All it does is download the huge 1MB file and then rescale it.
IMHO, and it's always been of my opinion that the Avatar hack and/or this particular feature is EXTREMELY short sighted. Why do people insist on giving the users power to bring a dialup connection or even an ISDN connection to it's knees with huge image files? That's exactly what happens when you give the user the ability to specify ANY URL they want for their little icon.
All my users icons are ones they have uploaded to my server (eliminating the speed problems from connecting to 50 billion different servers), then converted to the proper dimentions, THEN that file is sent to the user who views the message.
The above is the ONLY secure way to handle user icons, any other way and you are just BEGGING for trouble. I really don't see why people keep persisting with the Avatar hack or why on earth Infopop made the ability to specify a URL as a user image.
Anyway, just my 2c worth.
