If you are using races that are not native to that zone and are not in globals, you HAVE to create a [zone]_chr.txt file to tell eq where to load the models from. The [zone]_chr.s3d file only contains native models for that zone. The [zone]_chr.txt file says "hey eq.. I wanna use these models in addition to the ones native or in globals. Please force load them for me before you load the [zone]_chr.s3d file..".. EQ then reads how many forceload models it needs to grab and then forceloads each model listed in the file.
Having the database settings right is only part of the equation. You have to do both..
Hope that helps...