Quote - The thing is, it's not a few bytes, it's a few megabytes ;) it's in everyone's best interests (yours included) if this is NOT assumed to be the default when distributing textures.

Not bring a skin vendor, I wasn't aware of how many bytes might be involved, so I'll retract the "a few bytes" comment :)

A serious question though ... how much work is it for vendors to provide a low-rez skin for use in distance/other app works?  Is it an easy enough task that it gives vendors an extra revenue stream, providing that?

I'm trying to get a better idea of why it's not "common", more than anything else.