Not everybody lives in the US, you know. In Europe we have NFC in our credit cards. You put your wallet close to the register, write your PIN, and pay. Few small stores support NFC, though.

I'm not saying that's the reason why Apple ditched NFC, but maybe we would need an independent study on actual stores which support NFC and consider if whether it's a useless standard. You're gonna carry your wallet anyway to pay in cash, why not put the NFC in the credit card?