Comment # 32 on bug 1178296 from Dr. Werner Fink

(In reply to Fabian Vogt from comment #31)
> (In reply to Fabian Vogt from comment #30)
> > The difference is that the properties would not get overwritten, which is
> > important if you copy from /etc/skel first, and after that from
> > /usr/etc/skel. Otherwise the properties from /usr/etc/skel would get
> > overwritten again.
> 
> Submitted too early, what I meant was:
> Otherwise the properties would be overwritten based on the directory from
> /usr/etc/skel again.

The question is what should win ... /usr/etc/skel over /etc/skel or /etc/skel
over /usr/etc/skel ... IMHO the last one. In this case your approach seems to
be the better one!