[Maya] Rigging with multiple references

Ramshackle Shed

Hey, I have a character with multiple pieces of equipment (different gloves, shoulder pads, shoes, etc...) as different .ma files referenced to the file. I want all of the pieces to be rigged to a single rig and be swappable while animating in Maya.

I've tried rigging all of them and then toggling the references, and also tried using the Proxy system in the Reference Editor, but Maya automatically creates Foster Parents (due to the skinning information, I guess), which I need to hide without deleting them and eventually all that information bulks up.

Is this the intended way of using the Reference system? Or what is a more standard way of dealing with this problem?

Thanks!