"but it does give the hint that someone who knows what they are doing could end up with something akin to an area light..." That's basically what the gather node does. It simulates radiosity-like color bleeding, and can make an object's material appear to be casting light. Be warned though, it takes a LOOONG time to render good results using it. The AO function, although usable with standard lights, should really only be used on a diffuse IBL light... It works in tandum with IBL to simulate a "single bounce" GI setup, and the soft area-type shadows that it produces. Much faster than calculating true radiosity, or GI that calculates 2 or more light bounces.

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Tools :  3dsmax 2015, Daz Studio 4.6, PoserPro 2012, Blender v2.74

System: Pentium QuadCore i7, under Win 8, GeForce GTX 780 / 2GB GPU.