I'm all too familiar with the acrylic nail thing. A little background on myself...
I went to college for music with guitar as my primary instrument. Where I went to school you had to have 2 years of classical instruction at a minimum even if you studied contemporary or, "commercial" as they called it, styles of music.
So I had a classical guitar (two actually since the first one detonated itself in the case the night of my guitar juries) grew out my nails, had the footstool, learned Bach and Brouwer, and all that.
My nails were, and still are fairly strong without growing at funny angles or curling strangely so I was lucky. And they grew fast too so double lucky. Some of my peers weren't so lucky and went the acrylic route and that didn't end well for some. One of my instructors said he tried it and the glue they were using began dissolving the nail under the acrylic to the point he could no longer use his natural nails even if he wanted to to play guitar.
Another thing one of my commercial guitar teachers told me that I'll never forget is "let your equipment do the work for you." At the time I was preparing for my senior recital (I played Hot Wired and some other fusion and jazz tunes) when he said it meaning use the compressor and crank the amp so it does all those percussive pops and snaps so you don't have to work so hard with your right hand.
Of all the modes, scales, chord types, theory, etc, that statement was and will probably be the most revolutionary pieces of information I was ever given.