Owing to my carriers not supporting e-SIM, I have two phones — the other is an iPhone XR with Face ID. Unless I'm travelling to the UK, for which I need the other SIM, the XR serves a similar role as an iPad mini would if I were in any sense a "normal person".
The technical stuff is all fine, and it works as you say (I noticed the "look at screen" requirement myself a while back); my dislike is purely the practical issues, not the technical, as the arrangement of the contactless mechanisms in stores means the camera can either face me or the device can be close enough to the reader to work, but not both. Also, I'm still wearing masks quite often (not 100% of the time as when I bought the SE, but quite often) and for that, Touch works better than Face.
I suppose theoretically I could set up the Wallet on the Apple Watch, but I find the watch to be disappointingly difficult to get on with, again for UX reasons. (On screen buttons are too small and often reject touches entirely, everything is so slow to respond it might as well be going via a random website).
Regarding security, there's inherent (and fairly low) limits to the maximum payment, and cards can be disabled in banking apps if they go missing.
(I'd count your anecdote as "UI team": developer-designer collaboration rather than siloing each speciality).