I realize that. I offered this approach as an alternative, as I
> believe I can add the functionality to expand inline images in the
> description portion, but i don't see a way to make the link portion
> accept "aliases" for the file: protocol without major changes to link
> handling.  Even then, it seems a bit like a hack.
>
>  [many use cases omitted]
>>
>
>  Those are what I was thinking about for using other links as images.
>>
>
> Other than having to repeat yourself, wouldn't the
> [[custom:file.ext][file:file.**png]] syntax allow for most/all of the
> use cases mentioned?
>
> rick
>

Yes, I think [[custom:file.ext][file:file.png]] would cover all those cases.