That's what I was thinking. The only reason I considered it might still be relevant was that it was being used by Johan Lithvall a guy who designs some really nice hair for AAA's, he did the hair in the Horizon and Spiderman games. I wish Japanese devs shared more about their process for example how Capcom does their hair…
the trouble usually come from the miss matched normals (when you stitch in the geometry this is not an issue) at the seam. for example.... the cyinder on the right has the normals at the seam edited to be the same as the plane.