That hassle can in principle be totally mitigated. When you buy an OV-Chipkaart from a service desk (like an NS desk at a train station), they will not only charge you the 15€ (or whatever) fee, but they will also ask you how much you want to use to load the card. You can pay cash at such a desk.

You could probably also use those desks to reload the OV-Chipkaart with cash, but I've never tried that.