Well, I usually just bind the mesh to the skeleton, and if the model needs changing later on. I decided whether it's that important, that I want to re-bind the model... Yeah thats probably bad practice, but I'm not an animator... yet. When I rig a model it's only for posing.
Though if I were in a production setting. I would most likely keep the Model away from the skeleton as long as possible.
I would rig a Dummy with my skeleton, and do all my animation with it, and when the time came. I would bind the actual model to the Animated skeleton. This is what allot of people do, So guess it works well.
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