How to access & display images from a post without textual content ( and vice versa) according to best wordpress practices

This is really a CSS/HTML question as WordPress does not control your layout/styles.

You can use one loop and fling the data wherever you want basically.

For instance you can wrap individual functions in their own markup

//loop start

<div class="left"><?php the_title(); ?></div>  //float this title left
<div class="right"><?php the_content(); ?></div>  //float this content right
<div class="somewhere"><?php some_other_function(); ?></div> //position this where ever
<div class="image-box"><?php echo wp_get_attachment_image(); ?></div> 
//position a css box for images

//loop end