No, an IR shouldn't do that. At least, I don't think so. Feel under the fingers seems to be about compression to me, and IRs are linear.
Some of the speaker and impedance settings in the Amp block will affect compression. Some of the settings in the Cab block (relating to the emulated mic pre) will as well. If you're playing loud enough, the IR will affect what comes out of the speaker, which will affect the acoustic feedback loop between the speaker and the guitar...which will affect compression. But, the IR doesn't do it directly.
That being said....I'm still somewhat unclear what people actually mean when they say that things like that change the feel under the fingers. There is an interaction there between a real speaker and a guitar that could be related, specifically compression....and that seems to be what people are talking about...but....I can't honestly say I've ever felt it. I play a little differently based on the compression I hear, but I'd describe it as how long the note sustains and exactly how the note decays. Not feel.
But...a lot of the way people talk about sound doesn't make any sense to me.
I did a master not too long ago and got complimented specifically on the sense of depth that they thought was better in the master than in the mix. I get it in a mix context (depth is mostly about delay and reverb, maybe a bit about distortion to some people, probably because distortion implies compression/limiting, and consequently compression/limiting after the reverb/delay)....but short of compressing and limiting making the quiet reverb/delay tails louder and me adding (a tiny bit) more distortion (so, even more compression/limiting), I don't have a clue how one would even try to affect "depth" in mastering without going whole ham and adding a bunch of junk instead of suggesting a re-mix.
But, apparently, I'm doing it "right" and perhaps just describing it differently. So...whatever.
I'm all but convinced that the vast majority of people just plain don't grok compression, and I'm absolutely certain that there are people who understand it a LOT better than I do.
I don't know why, but there is something fundamentally wrong with IR's. If I knew the answer I could make a couple of bucks, I'm almost sure this is what is underlying the complaints of some people with Modelling.
My background. In the last three years I have fought and fought and fought with ALL the digital software and IR's out there, the first thing I discovered early on, was that to get rid of that horrible harshness, putting one cab sim before another cab sim ( in series ) solved a lot of issues. When I purchased my first Real modeller, Axe 3, mk II, Turbo ... what did I find? they have done the same thing, there is a speaker( in the amp ) put before another speaker ( in the cab section ).. This STILL doesn't solve problems though. Why does my Marshall MG15CF, a practice amp with an 8 inch speaker sound "better" than all the IR stuff? I'll do my best to explain. It presents all the notes evenly, with the same punch or percussiveness if you will, with the digital IR system I find that some strings sound better than others ??? and no, putting compression after the cab doesn't completely solve the problem, it works to a degree, but there's a cost, compression costs tone. My little practice amp punches all the notes out at the same velocity, no weird phasing, and no weird frequencies, and I've mic'ed it using a dynamic and a sm 57 and it sounds great. I'm not fooling myself with the 3d-ness of my room by the way.
Which brings me to the following. Mic placement on a speaker is SO critical, can't Fractal construct a placement feature? Where you can move the mic around on some external software to get to the sweet spot? I think Guitar Rig has this. If not, what about another feature I've seen on another product where there are about 12 dots on a speaker of an amp to choose from, where a mic was placed so that one could really get the tone exact. Currently there's about 4 to 6 mic placements to choose from with the stock IR's ... sorry, it just doesn't cut it. I don't care about 512 or 1024 cabinets. I don't want to go through all of those to get a basic tone. Like, take a classic Marshall, and place a 57, a coles, a 412 and a 121 in 12 different spots and I'm almost sure I could spend half the time I do now trying to find the right tone.
I like a clean, high-gain tone, like Van Halens on 1984. It's almost pure tone, with no fizz, etc.
I bought the highest quality modeller, the Axe 3, mk II, turbo, because I believe this problem can be solved.