I can't seem to find any mentions of OCIO looks anywhere apart from the karma render settings node, but that seems to only bake a look into an export. I would really like to use looks in the viewport, mostly because i believe the ACES 1.3 gamut compression is labeled a look in the OCIO config, and it would be very nice to preview things with the reference gamut compression applied.

So am i missing something? Is there really no way to apply an OCIO look to the viewport?

Unless a View specifically references a Look as part of its transform, no. Looks are not directly supported.