Have you thought about providing the ability to cut/paste, drag/drop images directly to an individual’s record (event, fact, etc.) from the user’s computer without having to first upload it and then link it?
No change required. Apart from the “drag/drop” bit you are describing the normal way to add images.
To add them just to the individual, do it on their “Album” tab.
To add them to a fact or event, edit the event and use the “Add media” option.
In both cases the upload and linkage is done in a single process.
The Album tab also provides an option (among the list triggered by pointing / hovering over the image title) to “Manage links”, i.e. link to more individuals or remove some links.