I could respond to this with "in a lightbox gallery there is no reloading or ping-ponging either, and I don't even have to hold ctrl/cmd to open images in new tabs, so it's even smarter", but, instead I'll just point out that with this superb CSS-only solution you can open images in new tabs if you want - the best of two worlds, without involving javascript :)
That's the number one feature I want in a Lightbox: for middle-clicking and ctrl-clicking to open the image in a new tab, rather than running some slow-as-molasses JavaScript animation that pops up a modal box and completely screws with my expectations of how a web page will behave.
This CSS-based lightbox actually looks like the first good Lightbox I've seen, in terms of usability.
