None of those reasons sound any more viable than Mars, and even if we wanted to exploit the resources of the surface, nothing we want to send down will survive long enough because of the atmospheric pressure, temperatures and corrosive atmosphere. Any automated systems will just stop working. At least on Mars we can send drones down that won't disintegrate after a short time. The only thing you could do is scoop up gases on the upper atmosphere (which is mostly CO2 anyway, basically useless), but that's a waste of energy and the weather systems make that a crapshoot.
But like you said, Mars is also silly, there's nothing there and it's too far away, it's only real value is advancing scientific understanding and that's it.