Hi,
I'm not fully sure yet what you mean and if you're asking for Flash or HTML5, but there is one thing to consider:
When replacing an image the browser can lose it's 'mouse' state - e.g. when the mouse moves over an element, the browsers send an over event, then the image will be removed and replaced, now the new image doesn't have an 'over' state and so the browser isn't sending an 'out' event when mouse moves out of the element.
The best possibilities to avoid such problems, is to use either sprite-sheets and the
crop settings or several elements and toogling their visibility (e.g. several children layer elements with enabled=false and dynamically change their visible setting).
This would also avoid the need for reloading or waiting when an image gets replaced.
Best regards,
Klaus