It was forced in Europe and Canada by shifting liability for fraud on swipe transactions to the merchant. Chips are very effective at preventing point-of-sale fraud. Mastercard and Visa had not tried to push it in the US, but they are getting more active now. As of this year, their processors are required to support chip transactions. By 2015 they will start shifting liability for certain transactions to the merchant if a chip card isn't used.
Worse? It's one extra step. Besides here in Australia the chip is already old tech. RFID is the new hotness. So much in fact it's killing the association that manages debit cards (EFTPOS)
In New Zealand it's certainly been worse - chip transactions consistently take 30+ seconds longer than swipe ones (ie. at least twice as long as the old way, just waiting around for the damn card reader)
Though the new Visa PayWave/MC PayPass tap-and-go stuff is really quick and super-easy, but not many merchants have it installed yet.
strange, because copying or reading a chip is very hard (last time I heard about it it was with a electron microscope), where copying a strip can be done in the same swipe as the transaction. I think I have seen a card in Germany with a different pin for the strip and the chip.
U.S. cards only have magnetic strips. It's possible there are some cards in the U.S. that have chips now, but point of sale systems don't generally use em, only the strip, yep.