Why does the Clothing Mesh piece of a Skeletal Mesh not update properly on reimport?

When I reimport my Skeletal Mesh, all pieces of the model, the joints, the skinning, etc. update prperly. Except for the mesh that has the Clothing Data applied to it. How do you iterate on mesh that has clothing data? If I delete the clothing data and reimport it works, but then I have to regenerate my clothing data, including the masks. Is there a way around this? even a way to save the clothing data and load it back on after? Thanks!

I think I am getting a better understanding of what is going on. It seems that the mesh that cloth is applied to is duplicated and completely independent of the original mesh. Which would explain why reimporting has no effect.

I still do not have a solution for it, and this workflow feels like a complete disconnect with iterative workflows.