Cool stuff with the job!!

For this kind of hair being realtime I would sculpt this as part of the actual head. I wouldn't worry about seams as those can be got rid of using either Z brush if you have it or Maya's own 3d texture tool, which has a clone brush very much like Photoshop. Textures wise I'd do different levels of spec to differ the hair from the skin.
Hope this helps

Cheers
Jay