@ Dusty

Yeah that's pretty much how I'd do it and shove the those groups under one parent, this way I can pick out whatever I need, whenever. If they all end up using the same shader then great, the shader provides yet another way to select the objs. I'd rather have it that way and not need it than the other way around. And what I meant by making sure my groups are clean is, after the various face extractions and duplications, the grouping can become messy and it can cause mesh distortion for example, when you rotate an obj and it starts to stretch and I just like to keep things tidy in general. My default layout is Outliner/Persp and I just don't know what I'd do if I couldn't have the Outliner constantly in my sight lol.

@ Dave

Could you clarify for me. You combine all parts that will use the same shader?
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Seriously I hate typing on this pad....took me 20 mins and even accidentally posted.