there's a way to intercept the rollover on a single particle, in addition to the click?
yep you can : http://doc.babylonjs.com/overviews/Solid_Particle_System#pickable-particles
set the SPS as pickable (isPickable: true) and an array called sps.pickedParticles is then populated for you : each key is the mesh faceId, each array element is an object {idx: particleID, faceId: faceIDInTheParticle}
here is a slightly modified example with a rollover : http://www.babylonjs-playground.com/#2FPT1A#68