Maya: How to create Cloth/Armor for rigged character?

Hi.

I found this guy post explainning how he do the cloth/armor by using the same bones the character have. When attach the cloth/armor, it replaces the bones in the cloth/armor with the bones of the character, this way the cloth/armor respect the character movement.

This bothers me, because i think there is a better way of creating armor or cloth for a character.

Using Maya, there is a better way to create armor without using the character bones?
I'm looking at youtube, cgsociety, autodesk community, but so far no luck.