Quote: "Do meshes use less memory..."
Yes, they use marginally less memory as there's less data associated with them (for example, texture data) but that's not a good reason for using them.
Quote: "or is there some other reason for using them?"
Yes.
- You can use them to add new limbs to objects.
- You can use them to make a multiple-mesh object into a single-mesh mesh (ie, combine the meshes).
- You can save a mesh as an X file.
Quote: "you can edit a mesh's data, but not an object directly"
You can modify vertices on both meshes and object limbs using the vertexdata commands.