Can you define poses/state-machines, porgramatically, inside the animation-BP (or elsewhere at all)?

In the context of a combo system, swapping ABPs at runtime is quite probably too much.

Yes it can work, yes it can be performant.
Yes you can possibly code “new” combos to acquire this way that can literally always be added when you feel like it.

But then you are extremely limited as to how you actually have to code the transitions.

Whereas, a system that purely works on montages is completely extebsible without any limitation - and it forces the developers to stick to the same standard.

For OP, i would just suggest to write a couple lines in c++ to save the animation time to a variable and re-stsrt the animation at that time - if that’s what works for him. Simple to do, and can be re-used through multiple systems for animation fine turning.

Without actually knwing what he’s doing in the end, it’s near impossible to give a precise answer.
Sync groups could be just what he needs too…