Hi Chad,
I actually figured it out... I was trying to post my results so if anyway gets trouble with this, my tread might help...
So like you said the key is that the Lytebox effect only works if you use the thumbnail+link...
Well, some time ago I actually tried to do this my self in the details view... but the previous versions were not very good with javascript...
I tried it myself and it works now even if I just use my own code... and that's what I actually did...
My situation is perhaps different than most... I use a small thumbnail in the users list, the user name and online/offline status...
The thumbnail it self is a link to the details page (on a new window), so I can never have the option Thumbnail+Link selected if I want to use the [userimage] token...
I selected the full link, and than i just use the jquery code to "call the lytebox effect" in my code...
Another approach to this would be to use the "Thumnail+Link" wish would enable me to use the [userimage] Lytebox efect... and in the list view i can just use the [imgupload] (my img token from DR), this however brings up a new problem, the default img in case the user has none, but in this case there still the option to use CSS with the background image style, wish works pretty well too...
In fact its how I did it before
But maybe I can post my findings another way... I remember some site where I could use the module demos to post examples... what was the link?
Anyway.... the dev's can also help with this, though its not nothing major... it could be a nice teak to be able to select to different image types, one for "list view" and another for "details view", and the [userimage] token would generate the html according to the view/option selected.
Sorry for the long comment, I hope this helps someone else in the same scenario.