Is there an easy way to load quake .wad or .pak texture files?

Look around for PAK Explorer. It will allow you to read through and even remove/replace/add files to quake 1 and quake 2 PAKs and PAQs. You can pull out the skins for models easily enough along with the models themselves (*.md2 I think). I don''t remember what format they are in, PCX maybe, but you can plagerize a log of good stuff out of those paks. Just be professional in how you use them.