Thanks for the suggestion. As you may already know, there is no 100% effective solution to preventing users from downloading the images displayed in the web browser. Your suggestion might prevent the casual surfer but any determined user can view the source to get the image url and paste it into the address bar. Then they can do a File-Save to have a copy. There is nothing I can do to prevent this.
Because of this, I think I should focus my limited time on other, more value-adding features of GS.
One possibility I might consider, though, is to add a permission 'Able to download media objects' that toggles the visibility of the Download toolbar icon. This would be more of a convenience rather than a real security solution, however, and I would be concerned users might complain that people without this permission are still able to download the file through other means.
Cheers,
Roger Martin
Creator and Lead Developer of Gallery Server Pro