Slow going on the model's texturing process, but I think I've worked out a decent method; I'm doing a thing where I bake the AO into a monochrome image and use is as a base for a transparency mask to paint over and use on different shades specific to each diffuse color
(this is distinct from the method I used to get the model online last Saturday, where I baked in the AO and used it as a low-opacity Multiply layer on the diffuse texture. Shading with Multiply has its uses but I avoid it while working with color these days)