i don't think it's fair to judge when other babies should be having hard finger foods. babies (and their parents!) are all so different.
my DS1 had no teeth until 13 months and was rubbish with hard food, especially apple! i found that he could not cope with chunks of apple, but could have thinly sliced apple (as thin and paper-like as i could cut it) without skin and then progressed onto thicker chunks.
my DS2 is 8 months, has no teeth but is much happier with apple than his brother was at the same age.
the only way we could get DS1 onto hard finger food (toast, breadsticks and rice cakes would all be thrown back up!) were those Heinz Biscotti biscuits. Horrid things loaded with sugar but they were the perfect texture to be chewed but would still melt in the mouth. he was about your daughter's age too.
good luck with your chat with the nursery. i would have been annoyed too if they had ignored my instructions.
have you tried the old classic tommee tippee free-flowing beakers? they don't spill (unless shaken violently!) but are easy to suck from and childminders and playgroups seem to use them. DS1 never took to a bottle but was very happy to drink from them from 6 months.
it seems fairly standard to have gripes like yours about childcare. our childminder is great, with 20 years experience yet she has still forgotten occasionally that berries give DS1 a sore bottom, and once he came home in the summer and drank (literally) a whole beaker of water at about 18 months, which made me question how much he had had in the day.
good luck with the finger foods and nursery relations....