Thanks for all the input. I've been playing around with image compositing for the last few days, primarily getting comfortable with PHP image libraries. I definitely think this is the way to go -- JQuery's simplified AJAX calls coupled to a php script that composites the images. Just to play around with the idea a bit, I put together a "sample product" image composite script that pulls a random image from the product database, combines it a "frame", gives it a bit of a tilt, and displays it on the greeting page of a customer's storefront. Each time you visit the front page, you're greeted with a new pic. All in all a successful experiment -- thanks for the idea, TR.

I'll start working on the handbag product visualization stuff in the near future, as soon as I stomp all the other fires that need stomping