> Its never clear if a point of sale terminal accepts Apple Pay and where to hold your device so I avoid using it since chances are I have to get out a card anyway.

This is actually kind of antithetical to your point. Apple Pay interoperates with all conventional point of sale systems. It's a PCI compliant, certified, contactless EMV payment device. You can use it anywhere you see the contactless EMV logo. There are standards actually about where that logo should be placed on the payment terminal to minimize confusion.

As for how to hold it, you're going to actually have less trouble figuring that out as compared to a passive card since passive cards have to be positioned a lot more accurately within the field.

There's a lot of examples of what you're describing but this isn't one.