playing with android studio, I notice that it has a section in project browser for "gradle scripts" anyone know if I can get that section in plain old idea ultimate? would be handy

You could open settings, go to Scopes, define a new scope named "Gradle files", and configure the pattern to be

file:*.gradle||file:*.gradle.kts

. Then you can switch in the Project tool window to a newly added section for that scope.