I think the point about the skids change is not whether it’s a sound practice, it’s the fact that the aircraft was in a totally unknown airworthiness condition
If it's still flying OK it's still a reasonable thing to do, fit new skids. Landing sans skids how might that turn out, besides incurring additional damage to the belly, what if it rolls on its side. One of our Hueys in Vietnam had a hover skid change, someone in a thread here had pics of a 212, I think in Alaska, doing the same. Once did the same as
crab mentions, 76 nose gear wouldn't extend, landed with the nose on a pile of sand bags. Problem was the oleo did not extend on take off and the scissor link jammed up against, and bent, the hydraulic jack.