Do you know how to avoid the custom submission black hole if you plan on using the same picture more than once?
If you save an image to the public directory (so that anyone can use it, and then it shows up in your "My Templates" tab), and then use that image in a submission initially, then the from then on out it doesn't get treated like a custom submission.
Once it's been approved and featured once, it's what I consider an "established template" and established templates get featured just as quickly as the popular templates. For example, if I used any of my 10+ Halo/GhostOfChurch templates they'd feature almost immediately because I've made submissions with all of them in the past.