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Weston  More than 8 million people stopped using their credit
cards last year, according to a TransUnion analysis. If you're
one of the people who voluntarily stopped using credit, you
might want to rethink that decision.  First, some background.
The ranks of U.S. residents who didn't have or didn't use a
general-purpose bank-issued credit card swelled from more than
70 million in 2009 to about 80 million in 2010, There are
several factors driving this trend:    • Some cardholders were
cut off. Credit card issuers lowered credit limits, shut down
inactive accounts and closed accounts with delinquent balances
in what are known as charge-offs. (Much of the drop in credit
card debt seen since the start of the financial crisis is due to
charge-offs.)   • Some were ticked off. All the limit cutting
and rate raising made a lot of people justifiably cranky, and
some vowed to stop using cr