Better to skip Mog in the World of Balance?

Think it's better to recruit Mog in the World of Ruin if I don't care about having all of his dances and don't want to use him yet?  Figure he might end up at a higher level if I take this approach.

Most character levels get re-adjusted to (I think) 20ish after the FC (Celes, Sabin, and Edgar start a little lower). Whether you recruit Mog in the WoB or not will have no impact on this (unless you recruit him and power level him like a madman to 21+, in which case he'll keep that level instead).

In short, if you don't care about Water Rondo (though it's pretty decent), then it won't matter much either way. You'll just have some catching up to do on ELs if you wait.

I honnestly see no reason to skip him personnaly, as mentionned he gain no extra level from being picked in WoR, instead he will start with Lower EL, the only benefit I can see is he will have access to his WoR's Esper sooner so if you were planning a build base on them it's a little benefit, to save extra money by not having to reset him.... or you could just not spend EL until he get his WoR's Espers.

Ahh, I thought I read that new characters have their levels averaged.  Celes was 18 when I went to the World of Ruin and remained 18.

Gogo was 22 upon finding him, so I think the averaging theory was correct.  Guess I shouldn't have gotten Mog in WoB after all.

It depends a bit I suppose on what sort of build you want to do with Mog.  If you're going for a magic build, get him in WoB.  If you're going for a dragoon build, still no reason not to get him in WoB, but most of his best espers are in WoR so you won't get much use out of him until then.  But like, nothing bad happens to him if you get him in WoB, so you still should.

I figured the Mog actor would have already been considered initialized by the intro sequence; but I can only guess as I've never skipped him in the WoB before (my brain won't let me deliberately skip Water Rondo, that empty space in his dance menu would haunt me).

Though even in it were to work as you're thinking, the difference of a few levels is trivially easy to make up just by popping him in a party and taking him through some dungeons as you go about your business. Drag him to the Ancient Castle and he'll be at party average in no time.