I had someone help extend the jQuery Cycle plugin and works great (thanks Levi Morrison!). It was a quick prototype so it still has a few quirks:
Scrolling up gives a weird effect and can not get it to work properly. Another thing is that it does not pause when you hover over the main content image. Can anyone help?
Answer: featurebox v2 (view fullscreen)
I use a new technique for this version, and it’s a lot cleaner. I think it does what you want.
Edit: no longer assumes all pager tabs are the same height. Runs slightly faster.