That's correct, I have a buffer of fixed size and no real need for dynamic allocation. However I noticed that the malloc() version saves some space in memory, presumably because I free() the memory as soon as I am done with the pointer (unless I'm wrong about how memory works in my particular case).
When I take the safer approach and use static arrays, the memory usage goes up depending on how many separate instances I invoke within my caller function, because with each call one global, however hidden, variable is created and maintained in memory.
Am I reasoning right about my original approach saving some memory?