I'm not sure that's completely accurate? Vertex skinning isn't (necessarily) tied to polygons . . but to having points (or any parameterized features) that can be transformed by a weighted blend of matrices.

The "vertex" in "vertex skinning" is really just "a thing with a position that gets moved."

p' = Σ wᵢ · Mᵢ · p

It's just a position. Triangles can come along for the ride downstream, but they're not essential, which is one of the reasons it's so efficient for some stuff. Polygons are the optimal surface - but surfaces are often extraneous.

Take all this a few hefty grains of salt, I'm an amateur in the field. My 3d/CAD work is strictly in support of my enterprise stuff. And making wicked battlemaps for gaming VTTs, natch.

But I will stand by the overarching statement that polygons are in fact an abstraction, and bridging that abstraction with whatever is in splats would be wicked awesome.