Interesting. Thanks for sharing your use case. I never really thought of FaceTime as a Skype alternative before.
This is odd to me. It's a native feature that can be used with anyone who owns an Apple device. No worries on if they have a Skype account. I use FaceTime a lot, I really would like to use it more. I would use FaceTime Audio more, but I already use too much data, as it is.