Adblock will kill any image that you don't want to see. I use it on a classic VW beetle forum where some members have very adult oriented signatures that I don't want my 5 year old daughter to see if she happens to walk by the 'puter when I'm on it.
As far as stealing money from AW goes, how can you classify it as stealing if the money doesn't find its way into my pocket?
Besides, you can set the filters in a way so that Adblock allows all images/ads from a particular site except for the ones that you specifically want to block. In this case Schnugg's gnat.