[lucaspiller]

When EMV was first introduced in the UK (10 years ago...) you could opt to sign instead of entering a PIN number. If you try and do that now in most cases the transaction is declined by the bank. This can cause issues when travelling abroad to countries that aren't use to or don't have the hardware for EMV.

[jamesbrownuhh]

There was also a key liability shift, in that the bank would not accept liability for fraudulent transactions which had been signed for, if chip and pin was available.

No surprise, then, that chip and PIN pretty much became the default, purely because no retailer wanted to take the risk.