I'm concerned that image links might not be visible or work properly.
What makes you concerned about that? There are posts with more than 50 images and they are all perfectly visible and working properly, see
this thread as an example.
As suggested by other members above, just find the perfect height and width for your images and position them well within a single post. You can always use the "hr" tag to separate the sections for different entries and it will look good, for example:
The Icopress post you referenced is made up of pizza images which are small and could be merged in just one post. This cannot be said about Mr. Roo contest which requires cool large image almost of human length.
The best approach is to post one, host others and link them up. But Op aired his concern about inadequate linking or so. So, he prefers all being displayed as a single image. If it is just two or three pictures, mods might allow him only if they see this post. But if it won't go well with many and especially with the rules of the context, the mods might merge the images.