Customizing Carousel 2

Hi everybody,

Have been checking out the Carousel 3 video here http://www.gotoandlearn.com/play?id=34
and figured out that what i need is best with the sourcefile from Carousel 2.
http://gotoandlearn.com/files/carousel2.zip

First thing i want to know is if its possible to put an object in the middle of the rotating carousel.
What this will do is hide the rotating images in the back but still be able to visualise the images in the front.
I have made a quick concept of what it should look like
[img=http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/1121/rotate01sv8.th.jpg][img=http://img171.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif]

When i try to do it myself with

   block.swapDepths(1000000); 

i cannot seem to hide only the back images without hiding the tooltips etc.

Second thing i want to accomplise within the movie is to have the tooltip replaced with a big(ger) information block that contains text but also an extra image.
I made a simple concept here

[img=http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6883/rotate02us8.th.jpg][img=http://img529.imageshack.us/images/thpix.gif]

What it should do is instead of displaying a tooltip on hover, you see a bigger information block with a logo and text underneath where it could also include a hyperlink.

have been trying to manipulate the tooltip but unable to create it just like the concept

Any help is appreciated !

Hope there is someone out there who could shed a bit of light how to make the above work

Thanks in advance