What I wanted to achieve is a code-less version which finally creates an MDL file containing skins, bones and animations

This way of doing i showed will just add some sort of "super" file in your work directory !
A simple file saying what are the MDL meshes to load( meshes that are MDL file so they already have animation and textures),
that file also describes what next meshes you will have to attach to the main mesh !
All that made by the same loading code at beginning of the level !

It's the way to go, and that is done by people using indie engines that create their own file format and customisation tool !

Well we'll wait for your solution !