Okay, first of all, we're discussing a patch in an inappropriate forum, which is a no-no.
Secondly, "raw images versus id3 tags" is a totally seperate issue than "bitmaps versus jpegs." If the person who wrote the album art patch (or one of you who want it were to do it for him, as I'm sure he's overworked as it is) were to implement id3 tag images, they'd have to implement jpg images as well. Then guess what? Cover.jpg would work.
So get at it, "I bet it's not that hard to do."