My advise would be, to have patience and don't give up.  The hair room is extremely frustrating to learn.  And while there is a bit of info out there, trial and error are your best friend.

Some things I have learned (mostly from the forums here).

-Short hair is a great starting point to learn from.  The longer the hair, the more 'complicated' things can get.

-Use the style tools.  Sometimes with shorter hair, this is all you'll need in combination with draping.  With longer hair, this beomes more crucial, as it will help better placement for the start of a simulation/draping and not only just the style.

-Like William mentioned, using a low poly figure and skull cap to make the base hair style works best if collisions are needed.  After you have a base hair you're happy with, save it in your library.  I then load it on my 'posed' figure, sim all the groups, and see what need tweeking, and then run the groups one at a time until I get each group where I want them.

-Finding out what all the dials do can be daunting at first, but as you play they start to become more apparent. 

For instance: 

-Root strength=how much the base (initial polygons) of the hair group 'stays' in place until a factor becomes involved. (Movement, wind force, pysical objects, ect.)  The higher the setting, the more it'll stay in place. That leads to...

-Root Strength Falloff= how far along the hair(polygons) the root strength goes.  Think of it like moose or hairspray.  You have to be careful with all this too though, as it can create very unrealistic results.  Basically, trial and error here.

-Possition Force:  Is used in combination with root strength falloff.  Think of it as hairspray.  I try and use as little of this as possible with long hair simulations, instead using the styling tools to get my hair as close to placement as possible.  Works great with short hair IMHO.

-Gravity:  As stated above, too high a setting can cause a lot of problems.  But I will state some higher settings helps in keeping things draping in the right places.  Trial and error again.  I use settings of -.0003 - -.0005.

-Kink and Kink strength help give that extra bit of life into natural hair, or adds the curls in your do.  Note that these are added AFTER a simulation, and these alone can cause poke throughs.

-Vertices=how many polygones are in each strand.  The higher the number, the more 'bends' (natuaral flow) it can make.  Note that this will increase your simulation time dramtically!!  I usually stay around 60 for longer hair, but have gone up as high as 100.

Not sure if I'm correct on all of that, but that's what I have gathered in my short time in the hair room.  Plus I haven't had my coffee yet.

Please correct me on any errors I have made please.

-Jeremy