Brent, it's likely that the biggest adjustment an Iowan (used to pheasants) has to make when hunting prairie grouse--whether you're talking chickens or sharpies--is this: What you think of as good pheasant cover is probably too heavy (both too tall and too thick) for prairie grouse. They like to be able to pop their heads up above the cover and see what's going on.
How "pointable" either species is depends on the cover (as I said, shorter and thinner than classic pheasant cover, but they still need to be able to hide if they're going to hold for a point) and whether you're hunting them early season or later. Early in the season (Sept through early Oct), you'll find them as singles, pairs, small coveys. A pointing dog that doesn't crowd them should do well sticking them in the early season. Later on, they tend to bunch up and become much more difficult to approach.
Sharpies do seem to relate more to ridgelines than do prairie chickens, although I've shot both on areas where the ground is tabletop flat, or at least has very little change in elevation. It can be a case of walking a lot before you find birds. Having hunted the same places for them in both SD and ND (less experience in NE), they will use the same areas year after year unless there is significant change in the habitat. On the National Grasslands in the Dakotas, they rotate grazing--which may mean that your honey hole from last year might as well be a golf course the next year.
It's been a couple years since I've gone after prairie birds. Living in northern WI, it can be tempting to hang around here, with grouse season opening in mid-Sept and woodcock shortly after. But that's a tough time of year to hunt woods birds, and I've never thought I've missed out on much--or at least not on much shooting, even though you might hear a lot of flushes--by heading west in September. Time to chase them again next year, I think.
