From my personal experience - it depends. In practice I try to leave the system off the domain as much as possible unless a software component absolutely requires it.
I tend to use a group policy automation tool like LGPO or PolicyFileEditor (PowerShell) to export/import policy files for the gold images and have as much of GP as possible live on the machine itself and disable inheritence on the View Desktop OU's.
Hope this information can help you
Best wishes
Vicky