Most of the comments I've read are in the context of using cheques to pay for retail purchases. Yeah, that's bad.
I don't use cheques to pay for anything, except one item: my rent. Cheques actually solve that problem pretty well.
See, my landlord (essentially just a guy I live with) doesn't have the infrastructure set up for electronic money transfer, nor should he. So I can't pay by debit, and it would strain my withdrawal limit to hand him $425 cash every month. What to do then?
I can just leave a cheque on the fridge, and he can cash it whenever. Debit and credit are suited to retail (cashier and customer are together, money needs to be transferred now) but cheques are well suited to money transfers where both parties aren't at the same place at the same time.
IF I HAD A MINE SHAFT, I don't think I would just abandon it. There's got to be a better way. -- Jack Handley, The New Mexican, 1988.