I'm still confused... Everything you're saying seems right... but it still sounds mad reductive. From the research I'm reading; I'm getting the idea that an eq curve is to an impulse response as a stickman drawing is to a Picasso (I know nothing of art either haha). Yes they're essentially the same thing at their core... filters. However, the respective levels of detail communicated by those two filters is vastly different; with the I.R. holding way more detail. I get that IR's don't saturate or distort and that they are static. They're "pictures" of whatever environment (or gear) that a sound might have passed through at the moment in time that is captured (or photographed). I'm wondering though... wouldn't that mean that I can still pick up on the distortion that was captured in the "picture"? The distortion/saturation that was present at the time picture? Another analogy could be I could draw you a picture of what my backyard looked like on Tuesday; all while doing my best to get the colours dimensions and lighting just right; or I could take a picture. The drawing would give an idea of what I saw. The picture on the other hand; shows the EXACT dimensions, colours and lighting as they were at the time the photo was taken.

I think haha... still learning over here.