For me, to make an IR more than usable, but desirable, in a "hostile" environment (two guitars, two vocals, 40+ people chatting...) was a frequency plot of the IR, such as these:
I then put two parametric EQ notches with fairly high Q (I'm using 5) on top of the two low end peaks. Right now I have both down 6 dB. It gives me most of the goodness I hear at lower volumes in my living room without becoming unmanageable.
I am working on software to create my own IRs and I think when I get to generating my own IRs (some positive thinking here) I'm going to listen more carefully to the mic recording (the one I sent to Cuki might have a bit too much proximity effect). I think for my usage I would be better putting the mic as far away as possible while keeping an eye on decent SNR.
Jon