Marking it as resolved. It seems supported in the WPMU (Multi-site) version, and I have the option of going for it soon.
If someone has a working solution, I could still consider it’s use.
You can hide categories from people who aren’t logged-in, and the next release includes a filter so you can write custom code to refine the handling of private categories, but there isn’t anything tied to role within the plug-in by default.
Thanks Joe, I’ll look forward to see what that can do. For now I will try to convince migration to WPMU, as it helps partition media files as well, and you have just the perfect user level control.
If you ever do implement this connection to *roles* please consider matching it to a popular plugin, e.g., Members.