XLD is good at ripping. But I don't use it for album art management.
I use MC for all album art management. MC is very good at properly embedding album art of any size, and also optionally stores the art externally. I like to have it written in the same folder as "album name.jpg". Just a second place for that art to be.
The main reason I do this is, I'm a tiny bit picky about album art looking correct. The stuff that is picked by doing a generic album lookup (with XLD or similar) is rarely what I want. So I either use MC's album art lookup, or go to an external site like albumartexchange.com, which has fantastic quality art in many different sizes.
I recently had some ceramic drink coasters custom made with album covers printed on them (dye sublimation). I used albumartexchange to find nice big high quality artwork for them. They mostly came out great. Super cool to have part of my album collection sitting on the table when socializing with friends.
Brian.