Oyster card vs visitor Oyster card

It seems that one versus the other you can buy online before you get there and have it shipped to your house in the USA
https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/visiting-london/visitor-oyster-card#on-this-page-0

OK, the key differences (I think):
1. The Visitor has a £5 activation fee.
2. The regular, if you register online, can be canceled if you lose it.
3. “Visitor Oyster cards have “special offers” made available to purchasers, normally discounts on anything from food to theatre tickets relevant to visitors. Whether you would make use of any of these offers is another thing and the specifics of offers are often not clear.“
4. You cannot get a Regular outside London.

Pretty much a wash as I doubt I would make use of the “special offers”. Since I can buy the Regular at a ticket machine at Heathrow that hassle seems minimal, unless the other 400 people on my flight have the same intentions.

Also:

• Activation fee, as you referred to it, is £5 for either Visitor or Regular.
  
• The activation fee on the Visitor is not refundable, the regular is.
  
• If you buy the Visitor and have it delivered, you will pay an average of $15 over what the loaded value and activation fee totals.

Since you can buy an Oyster anywhere you can buy a Tube ticket, why not wait and save the shipping cost.

In addition to the other disadvantages of the visitor oyster card, you can't add a travelcard to it but you can to a normal one.

If you can buy a soda from a vending machine, you can just as easily buy an Oyster card upon arrival in the UK. And, of course, if you have Apple pay or a contactless credit card, you can use those as well.

The visitor Oyster makes no sense to me, it costs more and does less.

I bought the Visitor Oyster cards...but did this as part of our London/Paris Christmas surprise trip for the kids.

It was also kind of a souvenir for them for their first trip across the pond.

On an additional note....I've used my Apple Pay as the "contactless" option when using the tube and really liked it.