Those are both really good ideas. I've been messing around with the hair and it looks like with the dynamics off it can potentially give me what I want once I learn all the parameters available. The particle emitter route sounds like a good option as well with some more fine control over the shape of the needles. I'll mess around with both and see what gives me a better look/render ratio.

Oh, and I was considering creating a lower-res model for wide shots, but I wanted to be able to push in on the character without doing anything hinky in post. Plus, the output will be at least 1280x720 and not SD, so the low-res version would have to be really...really visually similar to the full-res for it to look right in anything but very wide shots.