As John mentioned, try to maintain the balance / action of the bait with whatever changes you make. with sinking swimmers this can get difficult, floaters and floating divers seem easier to me at least.
If you've come to a couple of favorites that you rely on it may be worth the effort.
I've a couple of personnal standards I've modified to my liking by;
As new, float them in a tank and notice how they rest in a static way. Cut off all trebbles and then hang on a single hook on the rear. I usually go a bit bigger and longer than the tail treble I've cut off.
Put it back in the water and adjust to regain the original balance with weighting in the middle or tails as required. I've used all sorts of methods for this from split shot, lead wire, and cork (whatever works). Make notes as to what it takes to duplicate easier the next time.
The nice thing is you can modify like crazy. Imagination is your limit. Painting plugs, bucktails, streamers, etc. Couple of my all-time favorites to play with is the Cast Masters and Hopkins. Essentially I'll use them as a casting weight, and add a long light (hard to cast) rubber eel, worm, etc.
Nice thing about this is you can sometimes find these used at yard sales, flea markets, friends, wherever at dirt cheap prices. The hooks are shot, maybe prety beat up, but basicly they're good enough for the intended purpose. And they work just fine.
For me, I really like the floating divers with the metal lips (like the Atoms), They render themselves to a vast variation and with the metal lip, and stainless eye at the front they render themselve as a very "tunable" basic plug for your experimentations.
Some of the hollow plastic types can be a real pain to work with,, but well worth the effort at times, especially the jointed ones. These I note the balance, Remove the trebles and add single hook with dressing, Melt a hole in the tops of both sections, install birdshot and rebalance. Seal the hole with RTV or Epoxy. They make nice oversized "Rattle Trap" style baits and cast a whole lot better. If the action is poor, epoxy a larger metal lip on the existing and adjust as desired.
As mentioned, can be a P.I.F.A., but once you get one to work, they are nothing to repeat if you keep notes. After awhile experience makes it seem simpler and much quicker.
Just something to think about (my $0.02) if you like to "tinker".
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