Like the sound of this feature in 4.5.5p2 -
(640200) - Physics2D: Provide option to turn on/off the ability to detect a collider that overlaps the start of any 2D line/ray cast
Given many rays originate from within a body with a 2D collider, this should prove much more workable than moving objects in and out of IgnoreRaycast layers. But how does one enable it?!