I really think the new versions of Poser are worse when it comes to the Hair Room.

I just tried using Sydney and her strand hair in Poser 8, and it ran quite well.  Her hair really isn't meant to be used in extreme poses - that is, the settings make it so stiff that it doesn't flow naturally - but it runs quickly and doesn't crash in my version of Poser 8.

Upgrading to Poser 9 probably won't fix the problem if the issue is not enough system resources.