I've got no pictures for my contacts, and don't want to associate my facebook acct. So, my "People" tile has a bunch of ever-changing blank white boxes.
Is there any way to stop it rotating pictures that don't exist?
You could create an image that is the same colour of your theme, then make it everyones avatar. I'm pretty sure this would be the only way, even though it may take awhile, depending the number on contacts.
what if i assign pictures to only a couple of contacts, will the tile show their pictures and white ones for the people that don't have a picture assigned?
I actually decided to un-pin the People tile from my start screen.
The Phone tile will let me bring up contacts, same when emailing or messaging. I think it's just a bit of (nice looking, if you've got people-pictures) fluff.
what if i assign pictures to only a couple of contacts, will the tile show their pictures and white ones for the people that don't have a picture assigned?
I'm pretty sure it still shows white squares fading in and out, that is if I remember correctly before I added my Facebook account when I first got my phone.
I have it sync'd with FB, however i have stopped it from importing my FB contacts into my "address book". It's handy cause if i have any contacts that are on FB it links them and adds additional info to them.
Also the images you mention just go through all my FB contacts.