Combining or parenting? Combining will make one mesh, parenting will make one mesh selection based off the selection of the parent while still maintaining the ability to select the meshes within the parent group without having to separate. If you select them all together with the last selection becoming the parent and hit…
Yeah I was going to say parent is really the only way to save the pivot point of the original mesh. Unless you wrote a .mel script that combines and then centers the pivot point at the centerpoint of the original mesh.