The only way I've found to avoid getting or sending the slide shows is sending the picture by itself. If you send a text with words and pictures in the same message it sends as a slide show. The same is for people who do the same to you. It sucks but that's the only work around I've found for the slide show effect. I've just had to tell everyone to send me individual pictures and then send the text or vice versa.
I did have to take back my first S3 because for some reason I wouldn't get some people's text messages. I would sit in the room with them and they'd get mine but I would never receive theirs and once I got a replacement it worked fine. Just the slide show thing still irks me. And sending videos via text messaging is apparently out the window too.
Super phone tho. Love it. Try the flag live background screen out. It's definitely pretty cool and worth a buck when people get to see your states flag blowing in the breeze as a background. Definitely gets some ooohs and aaaahs with this phone