Quote - grichter: have you done anything with choreographed groups and handles?  i was reading a tutorial on how to wrap a sheet around a figure using a few choreographed vertices, and it makes me think that it might be possible to tug on pieces of cloth with primitives that are parents to the choreographed vertices.

Yes it is possible to use Props to move and tug pieces of cloth.
I have used a torus prop to do some neat things.