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So I've heard that one trick with painting cars/coaches/walls is to use warmed/hot paint over a cold surface. The idea being that the paint can be spread thinner whilst its hot and the cold surface makes it cool slower so that its easier to move it around on the surface for a bit longer to achieve that thinner effect.

I'm wondering if anyone has tried this with regard to models and if it works to helps or if watering paint down (to milky levels) is all that's required on models (or if a combo of heat and water has any effect either).

I certainly prefer to paint when it's colder, fighting against fast drying paint is a pain.
Never tried actually chilling a model though, maybe one to try this summer.

Aye though I've no idea if it would make a huge difference when one considers how long one has to hold a model whilst working on them, though I guess if you used a handle it would at least stay cooler for longer.

The other question is if warming the paint up would make any noticeable difference (so that neither model nor paint is super hot/cold but the difference between the two is greater

The thing you'll notice most with temperature is the rate at which the water in the paint evaporates to alter the viscosity way more than the changes of viscosity simply down to the temperature.

Water (so extrapolating for water based paints) does change viscosity with temperature, but not much at the temperature ranges we tend to inhabit day to day. Edit: Let me just remove my foot from my mouth, I mean to say you might notice a difference if your paint is heated above 60+ C which isn't something I can say I've ever tried.

I imagine that it'd work on non-water based paints like enamels however.

I would imagine this would work best on models made of a mertial that does not transfer heat well (plastic as opposed to copper) but do not hold it in your hand, use something else. Like bluetac. Just dump the models in the fridge / freezer and se how it goes.

Or just use a touch of glaze meduim