I used a lot of HW recognition systems.

To my opninion, the one in our tablets is the worse, because it's so slow that you will use any other available option, including a tiny stylus on-screen keyboard.

Palm's Graffiti is a lot more efficient, you have to learn special letters, but it's very accurate and fast when you get used to it.

WinMo Transcriber and it's familly (calligrapher, lasts Apple Newton HW system ...) are a lot easier to use, you can write very naturally, but it's not perfectly accurate, depending on you handwriting ability. To my opinion, and as i can have a very neat handwriting, I like this solution the best.

None are slow like the sh.t we have on NIT.

I would happily buy calligrapher software if it was available on Maemo.

By chance, on N810 we have the keyboard, far from perfect but a lot more efficient ...