Back again!
I love coming back to this game. And every once in a blue moon, I think of this thread and want to tinker some more.
I finally got Depth of Field to work! It turns out my values in ReShade were much different than the ones you mentioned in your post 3Dmember. Once I used those values, I finally noticed a difference in game!
I still can't get over what a difference your config makes. The colors are vibrant, the AO works great, and the DoF is a lot of fun to tinker with. I'm confident I can get something to compromise between blurred text and Depth of Field goodness.
If you still read here, thank you again for this!
Edit: Turns out the Raymarch setting that stopped bringing my FPS to a crawl was just as you suggested, by changing:
from #define RayAO_Samples 74
to
#define RayAO_Samples 5
If I put the Samples to 6, FPS tanks. If I put it at 5, it works beautifully. Also, with this on, do I need to turn on regular SSAO? I don't notice much of a difference with both of them on, and its probably straining my system to have both.