I don't know if this is quite what you're lookng for, because I used this on props that don't have body parts.  I wanted to be able to hide the propeller blades and landing gear with MAT poses to make "flying" poses for the aircraft on my new carrier.  I made sure they had the materials set for it, and just made the parts invisible in the materials room.  Saved the materials collections and then modified the headers to make them work as MAT poses.

There's probably a way to do it with the "hide" function, but I haven't tried that.  If not, then this could be a good workaround.

John