No, webapps should be build with the default maven-war-plugin. We only address war artifacts when merging several already built applications and webapps into a deployable unit.
Filtering is enabled by default for all files matching the following pattern: **/*.xml, **/*.conf, **/*.inc, **/*.sh, **/*.bat, **/*.jpif, **/*.properties, **/*.txt, **/*.bsh
Give it a "provided" scope.
A best practice is to split a projects into two workspaces, one concerning with creating libraries, webapps and applications with fixed configuration to either a local setup or a common test system setup and one workspace concerning with the creation of deployment ready artifacts configured to target the production system. Doing it this way will shrink your development poms and separates the concerns development and deployment. For the development workspace the answer will clearly be skinny artifacts and for the deployment workspace clearly full artifacts.
Artifacts created with version 1.x of this plugin can be used with this plugin too with the exception that only 5.3.xxx artifacts may be used.
For all skinny Artifacts in your dependencies list the default Maven dependencyManagement mechanism will work. This means you can do a mvn dependency:tree and will see the fixed version resolution. For full Artifacts in your dependencies list the dependencyManagement will not work.
