Fur + MI nodes

Why is the functionality of MI and Maya shaders taken out of maya Fur.  Example:
 Maya 7 allowed the user to drop in a mental ray shader or texture (i.e.
mib_amb_occlusion or DGS) and the hairs themselves would either display as
ambient occlusion or a DGS (and if you made a chrome DGS shader your hair would
reflect the environment).  

Now this seems like a step forward.  So why did Autodesk take out this
functionality in 8?  Is it still there and how do I access it if it is?  Because
it surely isn't the same or as easy as in 7.  In 7, as I said, you just dropped
the shader into say the Tip color or the Base Color slots or even the Ambient
Tip/Base Color slots. 

Thank you very much,