Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it sounds like you're calling the angle between the knuckle and strut the included angle - its not. The included angle is simply the SAI inclination + camber. However, leaving the top hat where it is changes the camber and included angle but not the SAI, so I guess the concept is the same, just found it a bit confusing the way you said it.
i apologize for the confusion i was not talking about THAT included angle. im talking about (word it different) "angle that is included" in the lower coilover perch. some coilovers like Meagan racing the holes for the mount are of equal distance from CL of the shock. where as a dg5 has a shorter distance on top than on bottom creating an angle that is included in the coilover giving you more camber. for instance we used dg5 coilovers a car set up 4.5 degrees of camber. same ride height on PSM and we only had 1.5 degrees. so you can see that lower coilover perch is actually a big deal in setting up your car properly
What is a reasonable setting? Not trying to be smart, I'm new to the S-chasis and don't know where it should be. Which brings me to:
if I told everyone exactly what im doing i would be out of my job. that being said i can point in general directions 
typical rule of thumb is to have at least if not more SAI than caster. going with way to much is bad to.
Can you elaborate on this a bit? SAI typically adds positive camber to the outside wheel (or trailing wheel while drifting), so i'm thinking you can use this to keep your trailing wheel camber in check, or maybe even add some negative camber to the leading wheel? But then this would mean higher SAI, which you were recommending to reduce. Does the jacking effect from SAI (due to the resulting scrub) cause more/less self steering?
Your trailing wheel has a small effect on front grip. its your leading wheel that's pointing you around the track So trying to set up your geo for more contact patch on the trailing tire would be counter productive. you want to dial in your lead wheel.
SAI is a source of self steer. but having too much of it causes geometry problems and makes it hard to get all of your other things like RC and scrub in check. and SAI does not cause scrub it causes jacking just like caster. it rasies the car so naturally the car wants to go to its lowest point and that's what returns the steering.
This might be asking too much, but can you explain why ackerman has that effect and how scrub can be used to fix it? Also, what is caster trail?
ackerman helps with selfsteer because your trailing wheel is scrubing trying to pull the wheel back to center. the more scrub radius you have the bigger the lever arm to pull it back. don't get hung up and think you need tons of scrub because you aren't getting self steer. you probably have a problem somewhere else in your geo set up.
Having to much ackerman in a car will react like you just put on on the front brakes. the wheels toe out as you add steering angle. a small amount is good for self steer but not too much so you don't slow the car down to much. I make a knuckle i make that gets 55 degrees of ACTUAL angle 5 degrees of ackerman at full lock and no over centering using NO offset spacer. it works great i have had pro and proam drivers rave about them.
this is caster trail/ mechanical trail. what wise fab has done is added steering axis offset which increses your caster trail. so a car with 9 degrees of caster stock knuckle has lets say 5 inchs of caster trail. if you offset the hub more you can now run 3 degrees of caster and have the same 5 inches of caster trail. make sense? that's how they get selfsteer with almost no SAI and caster. this reduces jacking and keeps the contact patch more flat through angle. unfortunately the self steer is now speed sensitive with this set up so the hair pin at longbeach requires hand over hand to steer the car but at higher speeds it steers its self on transistions.
Thanks! sorry for all the questions, pretty awesome to have a drift team's crew chief on here helping people out!