Jake:
Besides a Mosaic Dataset, what do you think would be the best way to store raster images outside of SDE to get excellent performance in ArcMap, where I would be able to use the replaceDataSource in python to get an automated solution that can be performed during non-business hours?
In response to your last post, many of the the current SDE image layers can be found in group layers and not necessarily at the bottom of the TOC, so your approach would by no means be the universal solution for my organization. In the past I had resourced these same images from IMS to SDE using a programmatic approach in VBA, but group layers also presented a problem. I had to resource these layers manually after getting an inventory of how often this occurred on my network. I was hoping the replaceDataSource in python for ArcMap v10.0 would make this task easier, but it appears that this option was not accounted for at this point in python.