Are you running ArcSDE? As far as I know, FGDB and PGDB formats don't suport archiving/versioning.
In the interest of keeping things simple and straightforward (which is always a good idea), I don't see much wrong with what you are doing. That same copy/rename/repost stategy can be applied to FGDB, GRID, SHP, PGDB, SDE, whatever. I do it all the time - it's great.
It may be more "efficient" database/storage-wise to implement SDE enterprise archiving/versioning, but I know it isn't easier.