This Cádiz lexicon says (also here) that quillo is used indiscriminately to attract attention, rather like “¡Oye!” in Spanish and its English cognate, “Oi!”, or, alternatively, like the English “Love”. In Barcelona (and presumably in other Spanish cities) quillo is also used derogatively, to express perceived age, ethnic and class distinctions, rather like the Spanish/Catalan charnego/xarnego and the British “chav”–see eg here. Quillo comes from chiquillo, ~“lad”, and also appears as illo, and probably not just in Málaga. Can you think of another case of a diminutive which is so diminished as to be all suffix and no root?
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I don’t think there’s yet any danger of misunderstanding if you use illo without clarification. Dante Medina (Cosas de cualquier familia) simply reproduces a stammer:
Carmen, excesivamente niña, empieza al salir el sol:
sí, sí, sí, yo lo vi al viejillo, al Ramoncillo chocho, atrasito de su casa, atrasito, atrasito al viejillo illo illo lla sí sí sí dejate De fábula lo vi robándose una cobija vieja, de sus cobijillas que ya no sir de su ven cómo te diré… de esas ya re viejas, desteñidas y agujereadas.
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