No, the only way to go (IMHO) is to have people like Animoto sell their AEP projects to end users...
I've used Encore for slideshows, but in the end, the look of it is something that my 10 year old could be able to put together with two clicks...

Perhaps if i could get off my lazy butt, i could make some AE templates...
But my lazy butt would rather pay out for some good AE slideshow templates instead...

Do you have After Affects? and are you comfortable with After Affects? This is something I highly recommend. Mosey over to Video Copilot and search for Elegant Slide Shows. Andrew has a great AE tutorial. Learn it! Once learned you can do 300 pics in 10 minutes and it does a nice job. I only use it for run of the mill slide shows but still want a quality looking piece, I use FCP for the good stuff when I want the music cadence to dictate timing of picture elements, more hands on . . no way around that.

My 2 cents

GMan

look for "SureTarget", it work really good. just place the picture any where and AE will do the rest for you.