[MAIN QUESTION: HOW TO: Keep mesh from returning to bind pose when detaching skin from skeleton?]

Hello, I am working on a mod for the free game "Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory," which uses .MD3 format for the 3D files (this is from the Quake 3 engine, which the game uses) and I am using the "Muskoka" Maya plug-in to export my new models. Also note: .MD3's use old vertex animation.

I am trying to create new hand models for the game, but I want the hands to have deformations in the animations. So, I found a nice 3D model of a hand and set it up with a skeleton and smooth bound the hand mesh to the skeleton, however, when I exported it and reimported it, only some other object (the sleeve) that had no skeleton (its mesh was not bound to anything) was the only thing that was in the file. --So, apparently I cannot export skin objects as geometry. So, I decided that I would just have to deattach the skin from the skeleton for every frame that I am going to set a key for (Although, In this test I was doing, I was not creating any animations).

OK, but here is where I ran into the problem: Upon detaching the skin, the mesh went back to the bind-pose, therefore defeating the entire purpose of me creating a skeleton for it.

Does anyone know how to help do what I am trying to do, either this way or some other completely different way? Or am I doomed to having to manually manipulate the vertices for every frame that I want deformations on and then manually put them back into place when I need them to be?