Thanks for that last, detailed reply, Jellby! My brain hurts -- so much to think about and absorb.
I did just throw together another test epub, copying/pasting
all of the ligatures just to see if they would even show up -- they do just fine in iBooks, but when I try it out in ADE, none of the ligs that are in that "Private Use Area" of the font show up at all. So if I really want to make use of
all the ligatures, it just ain't gonna work outside of iBooks -- at least, it won't in ADE.
Hmm... I'm gonna play with this a bit more, do a little more testing in both iBooks and ADE -- I'll come back with some screenshots in a bit that, hopefully, might be helpful for you (and maybe others), too.