I have a number of hand quilting projects in the UFO stage. So far I've felt like it was actually easier to do ones that had smaller pieces since you had more 'guidelines' built in. One of the ones I'm working on has 6" squares and they just seem huge!
As a self-taught hand quilter I may not be doing things like anyone else does. One thing I do at seam intersections is take an extra stitch to 'anchor' the line of stitching. My reason for doing this is that as a child I entertained myself un-quilting the quilt on my bed! So I'm making it more difficult for this to occur.