Quote...I see this object may be more of a "advanced" area for rigging...
No. It does not work that way really. Based on what you wrote It sounds like it will only be harder because it is not made right.
Its a humanoid figure. It will rig the same. The difference won't be the figure that makes it harder, it is just how much and exacting rigging that you do that will make it harder and if you have to do weighting. There won't be any weighting on a robot because there is no stretching because there is no skin to move when a part moves. Depending on the model this object should actually be easier to rig since you won't have to weight the model.
The simplest way I can think of to rig it would be to transfer a ready made rig. The fastest way I can think of to do that is go to "make human" and use one of their rigs. Or DAZ or poser if you know those.
Then make a bone for each moving part and animate the gizmo for joints of those parts, and you can see how it will work. So two bones for the arm and one joint for the elbow, with no weighting, its pretty easy. Weighting sucks! Fingers and toes will take more time.
You should really only need a relative few joints for it to work. So the ready made rigs in MakeHuman and DAZ should be fine.
I think you can just open your object in either program and start that way. Fit the rig to the model by moving the bones where they should go. Make human is about as easy as it gets.
On the other hand you said the model was kind of disordered and problematic. I personally would not even try to rig a model that was not made right in the first place. Yes I have skinned, rigged, weighted, and animated a model before. IF the model is a messy as you suggested then it may make a lot of sense to build a new one right first. The most important thing I guess is that the moving parts are all separate (not welded) then maybe it won't matter if it is a tris nightmare.