Existing UVs ... materials and AutoUV

[micheus]

Well, the UVmap information is assigned to the mesh. The texture is assigned to the material.
You can assign any different image to the diffuse map property of a material to change the texture applied to the object.
Or, you can create another material with its own image assigned to the diffuse map and assign this material to a mesh and get it "dressing" this new material.

It seems something you can automatize.