Depending on how you use them, image shortcuts are actually quite convenient. Each time the image gallery is uploaded, you will have them available and you can change them. This, of course, is a hacking solution, but much faster than trying to change the gallery code.
How will you display these images in the end? The second level of development here will be adding attributes to the product (similar to small_image and its associated attributes) and using event bindings to update these columns while saving the product. This will allow you to quickly find the images that you use for these purposes, while maintaining the usual image loading panel.
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