But then they’re gonna be separate objects, which will lead to other impracticalities. It’s not an overkill in my opinion, just the most straightforward way which doesn’t affect performance if that’s your concern. In fact, syncing separate meshes to act as one is the unusual approach in this case, if I understood your objective correctly of course. I say don’t think much about it and just do it ™ 
I hope I was able to clear up some stuff for you with my guidance 
Good luck!