I like the look of hand sewing the binding, but if the quilt will be dragged around and washed often, it last longer with machine sewn binding. When I do that, I too sew fron the back fold it to the front, and add a decorative stitch.
I make my mittered bindings with the Mittered Binding Tool. I used to fold them mittered, but since I found the tool I would not do it any other way.
Here is a link to it:
http://www.softexpressions.com/softw...indMtrTool.php
Maria