Mixing private and public uploads

I'm using private uploads but for performance purposes I'd like my imce uploads to be public. I had an idea that if I created a publicly accessible symbolic link to my (non-web accessible) imce upload directory I might be able to achieve this. With this scheme my upload directory can remain the same, but I must try to change the link that IMCE inserts into tinymce. Any idea how I can accomplish that?
Thanks, Moses