Quote - Can adding AO nodes to your shaders, with "Evaluate in IDL" ticked, help to compensate at all for the loss of small scale occlusion when IC is set low??

Yes.

Many will tell you never to use AO with IDL, and indeed if used indescriminately it can ruin your renders, but used prudently it can work well.

See this post about the subject by Blackhearted who, in my opinion, tends to produce very nice renders :-)

Free stuff @ https://poser.cobrablade.net/