Is there a way to show Excepts (+e in Unreal) in the "Channel Central" window that mIRC pops up when you double-click a channel window (similar to what xchat has)?
It's already there. The list defaults (I believe) to the bans list, but all you need to do is click the Excepts button. I'm not sure if this is new to 6.17 or if it was available in earlier versions, but it is in 6.17.