I saw it in a unreal ed tut once and thought well that`s how its done in real life (pockets being patched on) and though yer that`s probably the best way to do it - Although I do like the challenge of getting everything in to one mesh sometimes its smarter just to separate everything(same thing with my hand gun 9 different parts) - might be a little bugger when skinning though, but as this is not a skinning challenge no worries there.