Sorry, I wasn't very clear when I said "high quality". I'm not expecting anything but a thumbnail size image, but I did expect them to look the same if I generate them from arcpy or the ArcMap properties dialog. I'll attach examples tomorrow that show the difference. Here is the gist of what I'm trying to do.
import arcpy, time
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("CURRENT")
basemapLayer = arcpy.mapping.Layer(r"\\psf\Home\Desktop\darkbasemap.lyr")
df = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd, "*")[0]
arcpy.mapping.AddLayer(df, basemapLayer, "BOTTOM")
df.scale = 73957191 #exact tile level. Added this after Rebecca mentioned the cache levels and resampling
arcpy.RefreshActiveView() # Added this when trying to solve the resolution issue
time.sleep(10) # Added this to see if pausing to allow for tiles to draw would help. not sure if this does what I think...
mxd.makeThumbnail()
mxd.save()
The thumbnail is generated, but the thumbnail is very poor quality and not proportional, so it seems like it's more than just an issue of tiles being rendered before the thumbnail is generated, but maybe that is an incorrect assumption.
Thanks for the help!
Matt