*nodnod* I can totally understand that (and welcome to IJ!) -- you'd be missing out on a lot of what made them interesting at that point, I think. But then, I tend to think that the devil's in the details, and thus one should roll around in pay attention to them!
In the thing I was messing around with before I switched gears (heh), the first thing Mikaela noticed about humanoid!Ratchet was that his eyes reflected like headlights. I'm pretty sure his skin won't feel right, either. Because it's more fun for me if it's weird. ^_^