Why do people say to safeguard your hard hardware wallets when they are useless without the seed phrase?

For example if you lose your hardware wallet, or it's seized by the government, there is still zero risk to losing your bitcoin because they don't know the seed phrase.

The same bad actor entities could just as easily go purchase a hardware wallet at their own will and try to guess or brute force your seed phrase and reconstitute your wallet onto theirs.

That being said, why do people say to hide or protect your hardware wallets? I don't understand.