hi there!
here's a plugin with two commands to navigate in and out of compounds in an ICE Tree view.
this is an alternative to using the tiny buttons in the ICE Tree view, which you can assign a keyboard shortcut or something.

Not sure if anyone's come up with something similar before, but since in a fast search i found nothing, here you go.

cheers
t.

EDIT: won't work on Softimage 2010 or below. Haven't checked with 2011.

Nice, thanks!