Is there any way of altering the delay before the ‘Image toolbar’ appears? (the thing that appears in the top-left of an image when you hover the mouse over it)
And if so - how?
Tools/Internet Options
Click on Advanced Tab.
Scroll Down until you get to Multimedia section.
Unclick the box marked Engage Image Toolbar (as it says, you’ll have to restart).
You may also want to unclick Engage Auto-resizing of Image. That’s kind of a pain (bet you didn’t even know it was happening)
oops - misread your post. You just want to delay before it appears? No idea, their may be a registry key for it.
try here: http://www.winguides.com/registry/ Proceed at own risk 
Thank you, rex! That might not have been exactly what Lobsang was looking for, but it’s a “feature” that’s bothered me ever since I (reluctantly) switched to Explorer, and I never even considered that I could turn it off.
To clarify - I want the image toolbar to appear instantly instead of after a short delay.