Re: Photo Albums…. omfg!!
I don’t agree with what you’re saying. I understand the logic behind your ideas, but I think that it’s much better to create a gallery component from the ground up created for buddypress only.
If you have someone working on it which is 110% familiar with BuddyPress and knows exactly which core components and 3rd party plugins might have use for photo galleries, you have a much stronger and cleaner end results then using an existing solution.
You’ve mentioned keeping BuddyPress clean and “non-bloated” for several times, and I think that adjusting/hacking/modifying/adepting existing scripts to work with buddypress (which means a high chance of code conflicts, unused code and a clunky user experience) is not something that I would choose above a well written BP only component.
Would Facebook use an existing photoalbum script? It might sound like a very stupid comparison but I think BP aims to become a open source solution which stands completely on it’s own and can be compared with the bigger social network sites (atleast I hope that’s what they are aiming for:) A awesome BP Gallery component is very much needed and something which should not be (code)based on any existing plugin/script out there.
My 2 cents 
