Hi Kris,
if it's a large assembly, you're probably not going to like this much, but you can use an inheritance model. The part you won't like is re-assemblying everything. The nice part about it is that you can use inheritance functionality to remove features or update changes. You can change it back and forth between "merge" and "inheritance" based on your needs, as well as making it dependant or independant.
Joshua Houser| Pelco by Schneider Electric |Buildings & Business| United States| MCAD Tools Administrator
Phone: +559-292-1981 ext. 3490| Toll Free: +800-289-9100 ext. 3490