The lack of chip & pin options for USA-issued cards means that I tend to use cash for most smaller purchases. I've never had issues getting cash at an ATM machine in Europe and other locations.
I recently got a chip and signature card (thanks to this thread I think where someone mentioned that Citi AAdvantage has chip and signature on request). Even though it's useless at kiosks for the most part, it came in handy in Amsterdam recently. Every credit card machine I saw had the swipe feature disabled, so your only option was cash or chip. As long as there was a person to take the card, I had no issues, they all accepted the signature just fine. One restaurant actually took no cash either and had signs everywhere about only taking chip cards - so in that instance my chip card was a lifesaver.
It is still annoying though that you cannot use a chip and signature in ticket kiosks and the like. And in Amsterdam there was no such thing as small transactions such as say under 5 Euro not requiring a pin, they all did. And the train ticket machines didn't take cash, so a hassle. At least the tram ticket machines did take cash.
I have not had issues with swipe cards at hotels, and I generally haven't had issues in the UK (larger places admittedly) with a swipe card either.
I'll definitely try to get the Andrews FCU card at some point, for the chip and pin not to mentoin 0% forex. I find it curious that it would ask for a signature when someone is there to accept one, but then use pin in a kiosk. Why the difference? Why not just stick to pin at all times if it has that capability?