This is the real reason it has been delayed so long. I read an article a while back claiming that the cost to switch to EMV cards in the US was around $8 BILLION. Most of that cost is on the merchants, who have to replace their POS terminals.
October, 2015, is the "deadline". However, it's not an "ease", it's a "shove". Merchants are being told: "after that, you can accept a mag-stripe card if you want. But, you'll have to eat any fraud".
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Are your credit cards from Wells Fargo?
If so, I have some bad news: while there is a PIN in the chip, the signature requirement has "priority". The chip has some way to specify this to the terminal. So, it will require a signature if there's a way to capture it, and only fall back to a PIN if it's an unattended device.
This is supposed to work in things like unattended gas pumps in Europe. However, I can attest that it doesn't, at least not in Italy. We requested replacement Wells Fargo cards with EMV chips specifically for this purpose. In the end, I had to scrounge around for cash -- fortunately, we were mid-point in our trip and still had some Euros.
Maybe you have had better luck, or they will figure it out before widespread rollout in the US.
I don't know why US banks are sticking with the signature. I guess it's because they think consumers used to specifying a PIN for a debit card will get confused if it's required for a credit card.
