I eventually figured this one out. The solution is rather simple.
USE MONGOOSE
...or something else.
I've had nothing but problems with MongoSkin and after finally taking the time to learn Mongoose I prefer it anyway. The model paradigm is wonderful, especially since each model has its own persistence methods for saving changes to the document. The use of promises to create a fluent query API is so powerful and sooo much easier to read than the standard callback hell provided by the native MongoDB driver. Callback hell is only slightly mitigated by MongoSkin and it's still very hard to read the more complicated queries.
Edit: Downvote.....really? What thoughts were going through your head Mr. downvote? "Mongoose isn't my preferred ORM so here's a downvote."?