Thanks Jonathan. That makes sense from creating new feature classes and I will do that when I make new ones from now on.
But, is there a way to apply that same concept to an existing feature class?
If not, I may just do a join, make a new feature class again, and then I'll delete the non-useful fields.
...I suppose if I did that, I might as well just go ahead and create a brand new feature class, import in the fields like you mentioned, and then copy my existing feature class over... oh, the options...
Thanks again!