I'm in awe of the expetise here . . . I'm working on the simpliest finger-style book I could find, Progressive Guitar Method: Finger Picking.

No need to be in awe of anything here; we're all beginners at something.  :-)

A Mel Bay DVD taught by Alan Munde titled "Super Fingerpicking Guitar".  There's probably a book that goes with it. 
Another Mel Bay resource, this one is a book with a CD titled "You Can Teach Yourself Fingerpick Guitar". 

I don't do everything either of them has.  Especially the book gets quite elaborate and difficult.  But I learned a few things from each and think they were worth what I paid for them. 

I hope that helps. 

- Zurf

Now, the book that I'm using to learn basic fingerstyle provides a "Cheater Bm" where instead of using a barre you make the Am shape with fingers 2, 3, and 4, and then use finger 1 to fret the high E string at the second fret.

I hope it's not cheating... I do it all the time. But some songs sound better that way. To me at least. If I Die Young - off the top of my head.

What book do you use for fingerstyle? I love fingerstyle but can't find many lessons on it.

Also, if your hands are big enough, you can hook your thumb "over the top" to get the low E string if you happen to need it for the alternating bass.  That's also a common fingerstyle technique when you get to the 6th shape:
    X
----------------
:  :  :  :  :  :
T  :  :  :  :  1
----------------
  :  :  :  :  :  :
  :  :  :  2  :  :
----------------
  :  :  :  :  :  :
  :  :  3  : 4  :

Thanks for another great approach! My thumb is not yet cooperating on this approach, but maybe in time . . .

There's another weird one you can use for fingerpicking, but it's as much or worse of a bear as the barre version.  I like bass enough that the barre was worth the effort for me.  It's not as clean sounding as an open chord, but it's good enough if you pick quick enough that you don't have time to hear the blung instead of plunk.

Yeah, I like that idea of picking your way quickly so you don't really have time to hear the plunk!

This is a really common shape in country and rockabilly fingerstyle, and is, of course, totally movable.

That's not "cheating."  It's a perfectly valid Bm shape.  It's also a Cm, C#m, Dm, D#m, Em, Fm, F#m, Gm, Am, and A#m, depending on where on the neck you fret it. 

Thank you, Jerome!  It's good to know that. My knowledge of how chord shapes work up the neck is limited, but I'll remember your advice as I slowly get more familiar.

You can try to roll your finger over to the side a little so your finger nail is closer to the nut. Hope that makes sense. That way your finger is more rigid and the strings don't fit into your knuckle creases.

Check it out:
http://justinguitar.com/en/IM-111-EShap … Chords.php

Right about 4:00 mins. is where he gets to it. But the vid is good.

Thanks, z!   I had heard about rolling your finger like you describe, but I'd plumb forgotten it. It really helps! Also thanks so much for the link to Justin video. One of his videos gave me a lot of insight in the past, and this one did too. I like his teaching style, very encouraging and down to earth, and he takes it nice and slow and with a gentle sense of humor.