I think the bone, named the same as the bone in the hero, needs to be in the file in export so the compiler can tie your skin to the correct bone in the hero. I usually just import the whole skeleton, because the compiler (at least, the old one) discards the unused bones.
After you get the root files, there will be VMT files with each hero(and each slot) and in those files you can see the number for the values. Let's say you want to see the values for Abaddon's helm, this is the path: root > materials > models > heroes > Abaddon > Abbadon_helm.VMT
Do a Find in Files in Notepad++ for all the VMTs in the heroes folder, look for "$alphatest 1" and that will show you all the vmts with alpha enabled. I know it was added for Queen of Pain shortly after they said they were adding alpha to heroes. She didn't have it before.
good god the item tricounts for some of these heroes are so picky this already looks way too low and it doesn't even meet Lod0 Valve really needs to increase the tricounts by 100 at the very least It's not like a mere 500 extra triangles on a hero would make a decent computer chug or anything hell even 1000 total extra…
I hate game-items on heroes. At least It should all have similar style (since now items made by different artists and all looks different) and use the same model for each hero, not like 3 different Radiance. Anyway, rapier looks pretty nice.