[IcewindDude]

As said before, sloppy English is the same as sloppy Japanese. It certainly doesn't have to be printer perfect, but the more you deviate, the harder it will be to read. I've seen writing in Japanese written so bad that I had to use context of surrounding, slightly readable writing to understand what was written. I've seen worse in English... (doctor chicken-scratch... you would think they'd have a better, steady hand than that...)

And just like Kyle said, when you start to become familiar with all the "parts" (radicals) of kanji, they aren't as complex as they once seemed.