Interestingly I had the opposite journey, I am a Young so they didn't bother to teach me cursive in school, so in high school when I got into fountain pens I taught myself italic hand so that my handwriting would be more legible and easier to write with it -- but just recently I got tired of the two-stroke 'e' and taught myself Zaner-Bloser instead, lol. I do definitely see the drawbacks you mentioned though, after I started getting more casual with my writing I noticed 'l's and 'e's becoming quickly indistinguishable