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Iridescence is a peculiar thing... it's a distant cousin of specular highlights and of reflections, but it's not quite the same thing. It's what happens when light bounces off a surface with thousands of perfectly even, evenly spaced microscopic ridges, so small that the light of different wavelengths (colors) flies off in radically different directions. This has the effect of sorting light into a spectrum, and/or radically changing the object's color depending on which angle you view it from.
I intend to figure out a good way to fake it someday... and maybe something along the lines you've suggested will be the answer... Meantime, if you see a good example of an iridescent surface in a real-time game, please let me know. You'll know it's iridescent if it reminds you more of a peacock's feather or a hummingbird's throat than a chrome bumper.
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