Thanks again for your help balinor. I'm going to try to squeeze a little more from you though.
I see how the variants work and it solves some of my needs but not all of them. Let me give you another example...
Say the product in question is a box. I have the same options in the drop down menu (square, triangle and circle) and in this case these shapes are printed on the top of the box somehow. I want the customer to see the original product with no "options" but as they choose them in one way or another I want them to see their choice before the purchase.
Some of these items I have 30 or more options in that drop down and it would not be reasonable for me to take that many photos or to store them on the site since even a 100-product catalog multiplied by 30 options would easily become a burden just from the photos. However, just having a single photo of each item and a master set of the "options" would be very reasonable.
I know this is getting into a more complex area of X-Cart and probally other aspects of programming but any additional help you can offer would be appreciated.
Thanks!