I appreciate your use of "typically" , I've been reading this thread because I have a basic economy flight coming up this Friday. I am gold with VS (which translates to gold with Delta) and fly Delta for all of my domestic business trips and a handful of leisure. Mainly so that I can maintain my gold status with VS.

So I've been reading related threads and having some concerns but mainly my reasons for selecting the basic economy tickets are these:

3 tickets, saving me around 100 USD over main cabin fare, (that covers 3 days of dog boarding).
Short flight (connecting in ATL), so middle doesn't matter, we're bringing carry on only (under seat). Potential for upgrade wasn't that important. It was really just 100 USD extra to select our seats in advance.
Bu the main reason- basic economy and main cabin fares both earn 5 tier points per segment (unless I shell out a lot more $ for a higher fare bucket). Why am I going to pay more to earn the same (minuscule) amount of TPs?

I'll revisit this decision after my flight.