Quote - I think the root width and tip width of the hairs has been changed.
Does it make any difference if you change that?

That appears to help with the sparseness.  Thanks for the tip.

Quote - .......and both P7 and P8  have the same weird problem  of adding a black bar, with "censored" on it,  to  the hair.
Hmmmmmm.......

That goes away when you enable raytracing.