It's why television is so popular. Yes, but only if the graphics don't get in the way. The problem with graphics is that they're big. That 2000-word page will download in about 3 seconds for users with 28.8K modems. That's fast, but without graphics, it will be boring.
Graphics make a Web site more interesting, but they complicate the download process.
A single picture may not be worth 1000 words, but it can consume as much space as 1000 or more. Perhaps a lot more. If you have a graphic that contains text, you can get away with losing some colors as long as you keep good contrast between the text and the background. And if you have a photographic image, you can get away with the introduction of some fuzziness if you retain all the colors. The human eye does a good job of filling in the blanks.