I include actors up to and including the hip when making conforming boots - as Xena says, it just makes 'em work better... Some people seem to be able to do without the extra hierarchy, but I never figured it out; so for me, including the hip is easier. The extra actors won't affect anything else. For simplicity's sake, you can strip them down to the bare minimum if you know what you're doing (and I'm not claiming that I do). :)