Yes, this helps tremendously. I'm still pretty new to Maya, coming from max where the rigging tools seemed more... limited, lol (they aren't really, just less organized than Maya's). So your post is a little daunting and I'm scratching my head, but with anything in Maya, just concentrate on the general idea and the big picture starts to string itself together (literally).

I like how free the possibilities for rigging stuff are so far. I'll study your post and see where it takes me. Thanks!