I disagree -- I think that NFC just adds another step that makes the technology less approachable and doesn't provide a big benefit.

The problem solved here is that I don't need to carry a half dozen cards or slips of paper to do stuff. In my wallet right now I have a BJ's Card, two supermarket cards, CVS card, a Hilton Honors card, a Westin card, library card, health insurance ID card, dental ID card and a couple of other store cards. If I don't carry the cards, I need to giv my phone number to a clerk to look up my account, which is a pain.

So I'm carrying around all of these cards. Passbook gets rid of all of them -- that's compelling.

NFC is another layer of geekery that's cool, but I'm not going to use it, just like how I never use my RFID credit card. Why? Wireless point of sale readers cost a fortune, and they aren't available at 95% of retail outlets, and when they are, they only work for credit cards. (Honestly, in my area, I only see them at drug stores and Exxon/Mobil stations)

As I said, you can have both.

Also, you're not going to use it because no PoS has one ? Kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. Which can be solved by providing both optical and NFC.

QR code is unfortunately still more common than NFC. Everyone was hoping that Apple would make NFC common.

Passbook works a) with existing scanners deployed to b) millions of POS systems around the world. Neither A nor B is true for NFC.

You can have both.