Uv's have no use in the modeling stage of a project. Vertices are physical points that you can push and pull to alter your geomtetry, If you push and pull the UV's then the geometry will not change since UV's are just a mapping co-ordinate to tell Maya where to place a texture on your 3d model.
After modelling you will have to UV map the model ans unwrap the UV's to make a 2D map.Your 2D texture can then be created using the UV map as a giude to where each part of the texture will end up on your model.
Hope this makes sense to you and helps you understand a little better the function of UV'S.