Quicktabs: output divs instead of list
jQuery seems to be the way to go if you want to manipulate the markup output by Quicktabs.

 /*we only want to append the data once hence the condition */
 if (!($('#quicktabs-my_tabs .quicktabs-tabs li img').length &gt; 0)) {
   $('#quicktabs-my_tabs .quicktabs-tabs li.first').prepend("&lt;img src='sites/all/themes/mytheme/images/my_img1.jpg' alt='desc'&gt;");
   $('#quicktabs-my_tabs .quicktabs-tabs li.first').next().prepend("&lt;img src='sites/all/themes/mytheme/images/my_img2.jpg' alt='desc'&gt;");
   $('#quicktabs-my_tabs .quicktabs-tabs li.last').prepend("&lt;img src='sites/all/themes/mytheme/images/my_img3.jpg' alt='desc'&gt;");
   $('#quicktabs-my_tabs .quicktabs-tabs li a').append('&lt;span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;');
 }


Note that this example works for 3 tabs - it should be modified for your setup.

In order to make the whole quicktab a clickable link, add appropriate css to the span inside the a element, as described in this post: Make a div into a link