When you deviate it does NOT mean you are heading straight home.

You still get the bus to the hotel --- and the hotel room, if you want it (...ice/snow storm or not).

What's cancelled is your transportation back to the airport and the flight to MEM.

Also, they have to rebuild your pairing and reschedule your backend flight if you arrive late and do not get the min rest period required by CBA.

I've seen trip pay increase up to 10 credit hours when the flight needed to be reschedule the next day...and then extended again because of a 1 in 7.

The crew still headed straight home, but got paid for those extra days.

I think the real reason to NOT deviate until you arrive at the final destination is the case where you divert to another field and they end your trip right there (...i.e. they don't extend you to fly to the originally scheduled destination).

Regardless --- and bottom-line --- there are no advantages to deviating early on the back-end.