/3/ - 3DCG

Hey so I'm working on pic related, it's gonna be part of a prop for an environment scene. Currently the major parts are separate meshes as you can see from the scene explorer.

When it's done I'm going to combine it all into one mesh, but my question to you is: for the lowpoly, is it worth me actually welding it all together? Like, actually chopping into all the meshes and finding a neat way of getting all those separate elements to have their topology all flow together? Because I'll be honest - that sounds like a very unfun task. The only benefit I can think of right away is the more efficient UV real estate that will be made available by completely excising all unnecessary geo. Is there any other reason I should do it?

If not - I was just gonna go in and literally cut out any intersecting/internal geo, but leave it at that - not actually go as far as fusing the vertices together. Is that ok?
How would it be done in industry?
Cheers.