I've put what I've got up in Github; get it while it's hot! I've got firmware for the ESP32 and my Python desktop image conversion utility so far. I'll work on something internet-ty next [Ed: see below].

I'll go back and fill in some more comments when I get some time; hopefully it's understandable as is.

Here are the numbers on screen clears and screen draws after my cleanup:

# Clear the screen

Clear cycle.
Took 1075 ms to redraw the screen.
Going active again.

# Next to draw an image

Draw cycle.
Took 1531 ms to redraw the screen.

There are probably some bugs in there, but... I'll plow ahead with that IoT (I-o-Useful-T) deadline looming [Editor: Never did get it running before Monday morning...]. Call it 1 second to clear and 1.5 seconds to draw.