In general I think the only thing we can really say is a best practice is that you should not do anything destructive if you cannot clearly demonstrate why it is needed, and even if you have a good explanation why, assume that in the future you'll learn something new which may necessitate changes, so keep version available…
Quoted because why not have a conversation on this: Idk if this is "correct" but when i "paint on extra details" like (a square indent), i usually "generate a new AO for these very situations, this should be fine right... using the baked normal map to gen a new AO, turning off all other "edit layers". I do not see the…