Are those movers? I've sometimes seen streaming incorrectly pick the object to decide streaming for a texture on movers/skeletal meshes... Does this happen in game?
That is the correct answer Unreal is good at texture streaming. Streaming works better if your data is in small chunks. I wouldn't worry about saving draw calls - skeletal meshes aren't batched so you can't get lower than 1 per character - using 2-300 for your characters is hardly a problem if you don't take the piss…
I myself am a recent graduate (June 2012) and I can tell you from year one until the day I graduated people dropped left and right. When I started we had 3 different sections of about 25-30 students each. Move onto second semester, 2 different sections. Move onto 2nd year, now you have the ability to specialize in…