I'm not sure which thing you're being told anecdotally, but you can research some of the big-name surgeons and find out what they do with the foreskin, which might help.

Since they're all, as far as I know, going to say either "it's used for labia" or "we don't list it as part of the procedure at all, and if you have one, it's just a bonus."
As for depth, skin grafts are not such a big deal anymore, either. They generally don't take full-thickness grafts, meaning that some layers of skin are left behind at the "donor site," and the scar I saw from Brassard's grafting technique was about a 1" square of whitish skin. It's not ideal, but it's not a catastrophe if you do need one.