They certainly aren't when you're purged, whereas aura can never be dispelled, which is arguably the reason everything hasn't gone passive - it may be fine in pve, but in pvp it'd cause some ramifications.
It's certainly a nicer alternative to spend the handful of seconds it takes to respec over hearthing, trudging to your class trainer, paying them some gold and then potentially having to deal with re-sorting your bars.
That said, I'm in a similar boat - I've lost my love of demo after it became meta focused instead of pet focused, that and the conflicting stat priorities will mean my 3rd spec is just demo and collecting dust, but I wasn't in love with it during Catas MWC pet swapping BS days, still played it when the fight required it, so who knows.