There’s a few things to consider when making assets that have more than one material. If you interpolate between two values in the material with a mask, that masking and interpolating will make the material much heavier to render than if the values were just plugged directly, so for larger items that you don’t have too many of, it would be wiser to select those polygons in your 3D modelling software and assign it to a different material. This sharp polygon definition is also the only way to blend between translucency and opaque surfaces.
If you need some more textural blending and the object is going to be duplicated all over your scene, then you can use a multitude of blending options to keep everything in one material. I heard vertex blending being a possibility, but another is using texture masks. Texture masks can have a much higher resolution than polygons, so they can also work well as masks.
It’s a good idea to make a lot of good materials, but whether or not you need to sculpt or use generic textures all depends on the style you’re going for, what the surface is, what the object is, etc.