The truth is that I would rather use the armature method, because as you have said, the joint hierarchy is clear. What was not clear was whether or not it could work for multiple meshes, but you have confirmed my own thoughts, thank you. I just did not understand why there are 2 types of rigging in Blender when the armature method works well enough for any type of model in many other 3D art applications. It seemed that the system was created for hard body rigging to address issues with the other system.

As I understand it the armature system has the added advantage of weight mapping, which in soft body rigging allows for the deformation of the affected vertices in a natural looking manner.

I'll check into the video you have suggested. It may be one I have already downloaded, and have available on my hard drive. Thanks for the link.

Thanks for the friendly hint. I tend to forget certain things when there are other things prominent on my mind.