The second one with LI off looks flat and cartoon-ish. I used the default hair settings as well. Your render setting and lighting are flattening the image out as well. I still would rather spend the 3 hours rendering than 6 min and flat results. :)

Really?  You people have great eyes.  The second image had curls that looked crisper.  You could see individual hairs rathers than having them blurred them together.  Perhaps it's just my eyes.  The skin and everything looked about the same to me.

Still a good thread.  Anything to get a faster render.  If I render large, say 3170 x 2244, I set it up to render just before I get some sleep.