From your first image of the hypergraph, it doesn't look like the rig is grouped with the model. You've got your rig in with your nurbs circles, then your group1 separate. I can't see quite all the grouping in the second image, but try grouping your rig into one group (name it rig or something), then rename your model group1 to model, then group those two groups together and name it master or something.

I could be misinterpreting the problem, but it's probably worth a try.

PS Back to your original plan, I read a tutorial on adding an animated character to a scene by using a reference, and they scaled the character in the scene that was referencing the original, so you could see exactly how big you wanted it compared to other things in the scene. I don't know if that's a better way to do it or not, but that might help with this issue too.