You can use IDEA's directory-based project structure, where the settings are stored in .idea directory instead of .ipr file. It gives more fine-grained control over what is stored in version control. The .iml files will still be around, so it doesn't solve the random changes in them (maybe keep them out of source control?), but sharing things such as code style and inspection profiles is easy, since each of them will be in its own file under the .idea directory.