Do I actually need to link my theme’s style.css in the theme files

So I am developing a wordpress theme using a series of LESS files for the CSS. These compile using codekit to a combined and minifed stylesheet that I use for the theme’s styling.

I understand a wordpress theme must have a style.css which includes the info about the theme in its comments, but is it required to link this style.css in the header.php? Surely I can just have the theme info in it and nothing else and leave it untouched in the theme folder.
The stylesheet I actually use can just be called styles.css or main.css or something.

can anyone confirm this or give reasons why this might be a bad idea?

I would say: you should not use the style.css for the actual production CSS.

The reason is simple: minification. You cannot minify the content of the file completely, because WordPress has to read it. In my themes, I use style.css just for the headers, and I add a comment, explaining where to find the real CSS, so other developers don’t have to search too long.

Example:

/*
Theme Name:    My theme name
Version:       2013.08.24
License:       MIT
Text Domain:   t5_theme
Domain Path:  /lang

You will find the real stylesheet in css/default.css.
*/