Yeah I vouch for the same opinion with you guys. Come to think of it physical barriers are like 'breakers' or 'dispersers' of natural forces. You have nosehair to blockout dust and water. You have hair on your skin as a heat insulant when your body gets cold. So it's probably the same purpose plants have hair: to get rid of excess water in contact with the plant surface. Although I don't know if it's really true for Neps, I just thought of it from logical perspective.
But there's one thing that I don't get it, if you say a plant wards off excessive moisture by use of hairs, for example veitchii, which is largely epiphytic (supposedly but do correct me if I'm wrong), it stays on trees which means rainstorms have the biggest impact for getting too wet. Same goes for albo which grows exposed on the hills and slopes to which protection from rain is at its most minimal. However, when it comes to gracilis, it is an open grower, in fact more exposed than albo and it does not have hair
.That's the weird part. My guess is probably gracilis has waxy tough leaves, but anything other than that is just fuzzy to me. Guys what do you think?