I'll give the rest of the world credit for not allowing people free travel
on a stolen card.

Huh. Last I heard stolen Oyster cards work just fine.

Keep in mind that it's hard to spend more than £12/day with an Oyster
unless you're commuting to the suburbs, and that stolen cards usually
get shut off in a day or two. If I were a bank, I'd have much bigger
fish to fry.

I gather that even before chip+pin, merchant fraud using physically
stolen cards wasn't a big deal, and point of the chip was to prevent
skimming and cloning. Switching from signature pin is for the bank's
benefit, so they and the merchants don't have to store all those
little signed slips on the off chance someone challenges one of them.