As long as you don't actively give out your PIN, you should be protected through your bank if you report a card lost within 2 days of realizing it's missing. Even writing your PIN on your card (DON'T DO IT) doesn't count as giving it out to people.
I use checks more often now than I did in school. In school the only checks I wrote were, occasionally, between bank accounts and to the sorority. Now I use them to pay bills, because until recently I haven't been able to get settled enough to use my online bill pay. And I do tend to take advantage of the ability to float checks. Even at Walmart where they run it as an electronic debit, it still takes a day or two to hit your account.
I really shouldn't do that.