Anybody see this odd A/C dash vent system before?

I could be wrong, but I think AirTemp made those for dealer installed A/C.
I think you are right. Thru the 1960's, AC was still a fairly rare and expensive option but it quickly came down in cost so there was a big market in retrofitting AC to somewhat-new cars. I recall AirTemp was a Chrysler branded retrofit and perhaps only available thru dealers. In addition, others like Western Auto, Sears, and K-mart offered AC retrofits, which were probably clumsier and cheaper. My 1965 Newport had one with a York compressor (used by Ford and M-B) and my 1965 Dart had one with a Tecumseh compressor (York-ish but cast-iron).

In both, they drilled ugly holes in the firewall above the pedals and ran hoses straight from the knee-knocker box to the compressor inlet and filter outlet, using worm-screw hose clamps. Not elegant but it worked, and if it leaked a little Freon nobody cared since 10c/can and kids used those cans to power BB machine-guns (not kidding). Not sure if the dealer-installed kits were much more elegant. My Dart (273) had a special 1-groove cast-aluminum crank pulley which bolted inside the stamped-steel 2-groove factory crank pulley, which suggests a high-volume of kits to design and fab those. In all, the compressor had a single thick (0.5"W) V-belt which ran on the outer-most pulley groove.