Actually they've been making Presidential dollar coins recently too. I work at a dollar store, and I've had a few customers pay with them.
I really hate checks too though. I very rarely use them if I can get away with it. And, living in a retirement town like I do, most of our customers at work are old people, and a lot of the little old ladies like to pay with checks. On the plus side, we have this weird electronic check thing, where we stick the check in the verification machine, it voids the check and prints a slip for the customer to sign, and we hand the receipt and the voided check back to the customer. So I can at least suggest to the customer that they don't have to fill out the check if they don't want to, since we just void it and give it back to them. I still would much rather people use cash or plastic though. My mom isn't even that old, and she still insists on writing checks when she goes grocery shopping too. Well, I guess she is getting up there. She's almost 60. I just don't think of her as old because she doesn't look or act old most of the time, and she's my mom.
I think I will always need cash though, to try and limit my spending. At least until I get paid a salary that's decent anyways. With debit cards, I find it way too easy to just swipe it and not think anything of it, especially when I buy stuff at work. "Oh, it's just a dollar! I can afford this!" I ended up spending $35 over the course of March. That doesn't sound like a lot, but considering everything is a dollar or less, that's 35 things I bought. I spent way too much money on things that weren't necessary last month too. So what I'm planning on doing from now on is taking out $30 in cash every month, and only allowing myself to spend that on snacks for work and my weekly trip to taco bell. I think that should help a lot.