By now, TGers should realise that I kick the tyres a lot with the Xara Desktop applications.

The title of this Thread may be unwarranted but it addresses a lot of issues you have described over the years that I have been reading on the Forum.
The jQuery code is still rough but I felt I needed opinions on shortfalls from you.

It will have problems if copied into more than one location: Supersite or Variant.
It does not Stretch to Width.

Have a go with it for your own ideas:
The Ultimate Xara Slideshow.xar

Acorn