PattyLen, the way I was taught is it depends on how the recipe is written.
"1 cup flour, sifted" means to measure one cup, THEN sift and add all to the recipe.
"1 cup sifted flour" means to sift some flour, measure out one cup and add that to the recipe.
The way you do it makes a difference in how much flour is going into the recipe.
If it doesn't say one way or the other, then it's one cup of flour. You can sift it if you want, but add all of the flour to the recipe.
If you are cooking.. baking especially.. you should ALWAYS aerate your flour before you measure it by running a whisk or a fork through it before you scoop it. And when you measure it you should spoon it into your cup and then level it. Or better yet.. weigh it. You can experiment.. take your flour out and measure a cup.. weigh it. Then do the same but run a whisk through it before you scoop. There's usually a difference unless you recently aerated it. To achieve consistent results you really should weigh your dry ingredients and then sift them together. Not to mention it's easier to just weigh out 12 oz of cake flour on your scale than it is to aerate and scoop and level 3 cups. 
In a recipe, a cup of flour should weigh out like this:
AP Flour: 4.25 oz
Bread Flour: 4.75 oz
Cake Flour: 4 oz
Whole Wheat Flour: 4.25 oz
I would say yes, based on my cookies that I make.
Too much flour makes them heavy and thick.
As many great chefs will tell you (Emeril being one of them), cooking is a lot of "throw this and that together" but baking is a science and everything needs to be exact for the proper end result.
While I am one of those "until it looks right" cooks, I DO measure everything and I measure everything accurately when baking.
Well seing as how a measured cup of flour can be way more than a tbsp off (if it's firmly packed you can get an exrta 1/4 cup in there easily).. and your average cake recipe calls for 3 cups of flour.. you can end up with an extra 1/2 cup or more of flour if you don't at the VERY least aerate your flour before measuring and that can completely throw off your recipe. Weighing it just makes it easier all around. It really is easier to weigh 12 oz of flour than it is to measure out in cups. Scoop it into your bowl on a digital scale and stop when it hits 12 oz then sift it... viola you are done. I consider it to be the "lazy" way.. LOL.. suits me well.. 
I sift both. Whenever I don't, I pay for it with little lumps! I have a large hand-crank sifter that holds 2 pounds of powdered sugar at a time. Move the crank back and forth across the bottom - no need to spin it all the way around - too messy! It only takes less than 5 minutes to sift 4# of sugar. Well worth it to me!
I sift both. Whenever I don't, I pay for it with little lumps! I have a large hand-crank sifter that holds 2 pounds of powdered sugar at a time. Move the crank back and forth across the bottom - no need to spin it all the way around - too messy! It only takes less than 5 minutes to sift 4# of sugar. Well worth it to me!
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