Removing Thumbnails kills other actions

[elegance]

I am looking to remove the thumbnails on the product page and want the product image to change color based on the attribute chosen. I have that working using the Attribute Wizard Pro, but when I delete the thumbnails, it kills the ability to swap out the image as well as doesn't allow you to click to enlarge the image. I have 42 different color combinations per product, so I don't want that many thumbnails.

Also, when using this many images per product, would you anticipate that I'd have slower load time on the site?

Spent hours trying to figure this out, please offer some suggestions!
Thanks,
Christine