My beard is pretty coarse and wiry (using an electric shaver is pure torture; it does more pulling than cutting).

When my hair (which is curly too but much finer) was long, and when it wasn't tied back, I was forever pulling the side locks out and away from my beard where they often got hung up. So I started shaving the sides, leaving a goatee with bits extending a bit up the jawline--what I call a "Doctor Quest".

This solved most of the problem of my hair getting hung up in my beard at the time, but it did present the theory to me that the fellow who invented velcro must've been a bearded long-hair like I was.

Hair is much shorter now, but the goat is still there, usually. At the moment though, it's a combo Pancho Villa `stache and soul patch. If I quit shaving today, the beard will be back in about 2 weeks. Seems to be more grey in it each time, tho'...