IMO, if the images don't aid the text, they are unnecessary. If people are going to read an article that long, the pictures aren't going to help break up the co

IMO, if the images don't aid the text, they are unnecessary. If people are going to read an article that long, the pictures aren't going to help break up the content. For me they were a bit distracting and actually caused some weird line breaks (I actually stated thinking about creating a bookmarklet that would zap unwanted DOM elements with a click). Other examples of long blocks of text which people read include books, articles on http://alistapart.com http://alistapart.com (okay they have one but it is classy and fits with the site), and long comment threads on hacker news.