Characters and skeletal mesh actors

I understand the distinction between characters pawns and actors. I have purchased some assets on the marketplace and they usually include a skeletal mesh actor. This actor is usually set up perfect for the asset except that is not a pawn and therefore cannot be possessed. I can see a couple different routes to try to take this and the engine but I wanted to know what the preferred route was. Should I be using these actors as reference, or should I try to spawn them as a child of the character. Or should I try converting them into Pawns or characters. I will likely be building a game in which the character has little need to vary between skeletal meshes. Just swapping out the skeletal mesh and animation blueprint on the character is easy but won’t include actors attached to sockets etc.