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Better understand the mechanisms involved in order to have better tools to fight against it, or better surveillance tools when sampling? (e.g. have a better idea of whether a wildlife pathogen is approaching zoonoticity)

The military application is the easiest to imagine, but viruses have been made useful in medicine too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenoviridae#Use_in_gene_thera...

They will do it themselves naturally so studying such a change means you are already prepared when they do.

Same reason black-hat security research exists. By developing a virus in a contained environment, you can study it, model it, potentially develop mitigations or cures.

Probably has no relevance for the research in question but viruses are a very effective way to deliver CRISPR-based therapies.

It's conceivable to implant the mRNA of a vaccine similar to what was used for COVID-19 into a transmissible virus and inoculate (or kill) large segments of the population.