Even without [Style] metadata on the component class, it seems you can set CSS properties and they'll be available in the skin. As a test, I created a custom skin and attached it to SkinnableComponent, and then set a property 'special-color' via CSS. In the skin, I bound to "{getStyle('specialColor')", and it retrieved the property value that I set.
All you might be sacrificing by omitting the metadata is the autocompletion on the CSS.
My test code:
SkinTest.mxml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:Application xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
     xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
     xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo" minWidth="1024" minHeight="768">
<fx:Declarations>
 <!-- Place non-visual elements (e.g., services, value objects) here -->
</fx:Declarations>
<fx:Style>
 @namespace s "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark";
 @namespace mx "library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo";
 s|SkinnableComponent {
  skin-class: ClassReference("skins.CustomSkin");
  special-color: blue;
 }
</fx:Style>
<s:SkinnableComponent width="300" height="300"/>
</s:Application>
CustomSkin.mxml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<s:SparkSkin xmlns:fx="http://ns.adobe.com/mxml/2009" 
  xmlns:s="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/spark" 
  xmlns:mx="library://ns.adobe.com/flex/halo" width="400" height="300">
<fx:Declarations>
 <!-- Place non-visual elements (e.g., services, value objects) here -->
</fx:Declarations>
<s:Rect left="0" top="0" right="0" bottom="0">
 <s:fill>
  <s:SolidColor color="{getStyle('specialColor')}"/>
 </s:fill>
</s:Rect>
</s:SparkSkin>