Jesse: no, array_intersect_key does not accomplish the same thing as what you posted:
array_flip (array_intersect (array_flip ($a), array_flip ($b)))
because when the array is flipped, values become keys. having duplicate values is not a problem, but having duplicate keys is. array_flip resolves it by keeping only one of the duplicates and discarding the rest. by the time you start intersecting, you've already lost information.