Ok, I redid the model from scratch, except the skullcap. Soft decorated groups are completely out of the question, no matter how they are made, they will get tangled up and cause some amazing bugs.

So instead I am going completely with multiple cloth objects, that I can collide with one another (Or not, I am testing which works best)  Initial tests with displacements are going well. Although multiple layers will go through each other when I make waves. An alternative is to only let the top layers have the waves. Initial tests have shown that using displacement waves only for top layers seems to work best.

Another tricky area is the parting, near the forehead, getting that one to look good.

The hair texture and trans map needs some work too. It's my first hair model, so it's taking some work to get it right. But bit by bit I think we're getting somewhere!

Another thing I'd like to do is to make an extra layer that has loose "fly" strands, using displacements, to get a bit of that wild, dynamic look.

Currently I have 4 layers. They each begin lower and the top one start from the parting. That way it will actually appear thick when the head is turned rather than look like it all comes from the parting. This means 4 simulations in the cloth room. And a 5th if I use flying strands, too.

It's not as bad as it seams. Using hex triangles, the simulations go really, really fast even when each layer uses 9-12k polys.