Is it possible to do a CSV import that references IDs of inactive records?

not without first temporarily activating the referenced inactive record. The record saving is what actually fails. This means you can't import anything onto a record that has some inactive reference in a different field.

crumbs

I feel like I've done this before. What happens if you check the box for "include inactives in global search" or whatever it is actually called

I always have that user preference turned on, and still get this error =\ Good thinking though

hurrah it turns out, though I need to import > 100,000 records, there are only 4 inactive ids I have to worry about