Newbie Question

[lillilah]

So, I'm just starting to learn Russian and, not surprisingly, have a bunch of questions. Of course, I'm having trouble with the soft sound and the vast amount of conflicting information on how to pronounce letters with it. However, my question today is about handwriting. I'm using a book from 1996, and in the chapter on Russian handwriting, it says that everyone is pretty much taught the same kind of fancy-looking handwriting style. Now, I know that back in the day in the US "cursive" handwriting was considered really important in schools (much to my misery), but now I get the impression that it is considered a lot less important and kids are more often allowed to print their letters. Most adults I know definitely don't use the cursive style. So, what's the story in Russia? Fancy cursive-style handwriting, hand printed Cyrillic or a mix of both?

Now, for specifics:
Тт vs. Мм - The book says that generally т's look a lot like м's, but that some people put a line over them to differentiate, and others write them so they look more like the printed т (which looks a lot like an upper case handwritten Г). Anyone have any thoughts on this? Have things changed from when the book was written?

What about putting a line under the handwritten ш to distinguish it from the handwritten и?

Thanks in advance for your help. Hopefully, this won't spark a flame war.