Isn't it safer to only encrypt the wallet, then back it up, and NOT save the seed? If you use the seed, and it gets compromised, then you immediately lost all your coins.
But if you only save the password safely, and backup the wallet file in several locations, then you gain a form of multi-factor authentication, because if the password gets compromised - the wallet file is still needed, and vice versa.

The seed may be useful for portability of the wallet, but it's a major security risk compared to just using the password and wallet file.

Am I missing something here?
Backing up the encrypted wallet file and saving the password elsewhere is basically equivalent to encrypting the seed itself and saving the encrypted seed in a different location to the encryption key. But indeed, that would require both parts to be used so would be more secure than just backing up an unencrypted seed itself