I prefer the full chain case cover guard as well, but those were for UK consumption from what I've read. The US got the hockey stick guards, which do show off the beautiful Heron cutouts on the chainring.
I'm going on very faded memory back fifty years to when I was working at the Schwinn/Raleigh dealership, but supposedly the different chain guard for the US market had something to do with bicycle weight and import duties. Supposedly, the full chain case models put the Tourist just over the weight line for a certain amount of import duty, adding to the cost of bringing the bikes in. Replace the chain case with a regular chain guard and the difference (what, a pound or maybe a pound and a half?) dropped the duty per unit.
I was told this by Merle Adams, the owner of the shop and a long time Raleigh dealer, as the explanation he got from the factory rep. Merle was a big time Tourist lover (as far as he was concerned, that was the only adult bicycle Raleigh needed to make, although he had a begrudging respect for the Sports), and this came out of a conversation we were having one slow winter day when I chanced upon some pictures of the English market version.
No, I don't have the documentation to back it up. Sorry, just working on memory. However, it does make a certain amount of sense as to why one market's bike would be different from the others.
Yep, during 10-speed mania and the Bike Boom, I worked for a dealer who wanted to only sell 3-speeds, disliked the derailleur road bikes, and refused to order anything higher in the line than a Raleigh Super Course (he eventually ordered an International for his son) because he couldn't believe that anyone would be stupid enough to pay over $150.00 for a bicycle.