Is it ever the case that a target-level setting overrides a
project-level setting?
I don't believe so. The build style setting always trumps the target
setting.
future GUI suggestion: How about showing side-by-side columns for
Project Level settings and each of the Target level settings, and
bold-face the one that overrules the others?
You can do this now. Show the build inspector for a target and show
the collections drawer. Click on any item in the drawer and then
select all. The list in the inspector now shows all settings. The
ones with lines through them are being overruled by the build style.
It only works for one target at a time but that should be enough for
99.9% of cases.