A quicker way to do this is build the gallery/thumbs pages with something
like JAlbum and then apply your site template to these pages.

If you just had a few photos in the gallery I'd say no. But I
ultimately cut my viewing short because I got tired of going back and
forth. Like trying to read a book where you have to go back to the
table of contents before every new page.

Plus I have the fastest cable modem connection my cable company
provides. I would think someone with a slower connection would be even
more annoyed.

Finally, given the ubiquitous Previous/Next arrangements in most other
sites, yours just seems unnecessarily primitive. This hurts your
marketing.

If you can make the buttons relatively easily, I strongly recommend
it. I hear ya about the extra coding, though.

Cheers,
DuncanC