Well, learning the cursive way is useful when you do lots of handwriting in Russian or living in a russian-speaking country where you are going to deal with people's handwriting! I don't see any other possibility. Nowadays no one actually writes that much outside schools, universities. Most of us are contacting on technologies and reading print things so, it's best to get used to the Cyrillic alphabet. In my humble opinion :)

Why do you expect any difference with English here? pros: - It won't take as much time as, for example, Russian phonetics. Many of the letters are jsut the same. - you will feel just a bit more satisfied with yourself:) - In case you've mastered it and can write it accurately enough, Russians will be glad to find you can write Russian. We don't see handwriting often... And we are pleased to see a foreigner having any Russian skill. con(s): - You can perfectly survive withoout it. Computers are just everywhere. No difference with Canada, i guess.