I had problems with the Egypt hair where the transparency maps kept getting replaced by the texture maps no matter what I'd do.  A few people confirmed that it was a bug that hasn't been resolved yet.  It renders fine but is solid in any preview mode I use OR mistakenly uses the texture map as the transparency map as I've said which looks very weird.  I've just tried using the Millenium Beard for M3 and I'm having a similar problem.  The transparency maps don't load.  When I reload the textures they do, but they just don't work in any preview mode like the beard for M2 does.
The M3 beard will render ok, but I want to see the different MAT poses as I'm working, and the only choice I have is without any transparency maps.  Has anybody else had this problem?