My handwriting is shit. Terrible. Infact it is so bad I almost failed school.
At the age of 5 I was told by various authority figures that I was thick because I couldn't write. I vividly remember being told that some people have dyslexia, and that why they can't write, however I'm just slow, and that I'll have to just try harder.
Fortunately my mother decided that this was bollocks and forced the school to actually try. All through first, middle and high school my handwriting held me back. It is exceeding tedious to have all the correct answers but not be able to express them in a written format, the only format that gets you marks. When I was choosing my GCSEs at the age of 14, I had to weight up my potential career choices for someone who appears illiterate, and had a very high chance of leaving school at 16 with no qualifications. (the standard thing to do in my situation is to only do maths, a single science and English).
Fortunately my school was progressive and decided to try giving me an apple eMate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMate_300). This literally changed my life.
It was the beginning of me realising that perhaps I wasn't a failure, and that I might be able to actually achieve something other than living in the family home.
I have a house, a wife, child and a first class degree. All of which would not have been possible without typing.
So the next time someone says that typing is inferior to hand writing, and that its very simple to write at the speed of thought, have some empathy for the legions of people that cannot write for shit.