You're right, druids don't need cyclone to be viable as pve healers. Nor do other healers need their defense mechanisms. It's possible to have a flawless execution where none of this stuff is useful or important.
But I play my healer to deal with as many situations as I can. My goal is to keep the group alive as best as I can regardless of what unexpected events happen, or mistakes are made. I believe that dealing with errors is the mark of a good healer.
As for full clear or not, a full clear is normal in a progression run, which is when you play to the fullest. Sure when we're all doing H mechanar for the 50th time for some quick badges, we don't. And I've certainly run mechanar more times for badges than I did to learn it (cold). But I don't really think quickie badge runs are really where the game shines, nor where it's interesting to discuss class abilities. You don't use most of your abiltiies because there's no need.
Then you're making things up. I said this change will reduce the distance at which it can be cast, which reduces the TIME there is to cast it. This doesn't mean I will stand closer to the tank than before. It means that there will be less time to cast cyclone when an add is running at me. Less time means I may get hit before the spell lands. One cannot begin to cast the ability until they are in range, there are times when 20 yards may be insufficient but 30 yards are enough.
Is this a huge change? Of course not. I said it's "unfortunate". It was an opinion made in a forum for talking about the changes that are listed.
Cyclone allows me to cc the mob for 6 seconds while taking no damage, continuing in my healing patterns, and allows the tank those six seconds to ready a taunt or what have you. Bear lets me.. get hit.. for somewhat less damage than I would otherwise get hit. And after I get hit, if I'm still alive, I might have enough rage to do something about the situation, like bash or charge away. Sure, I can use those tools and sometimes do, but you seem to erroneously believe that I should choose to take damage as a healer when I can elect to not take damage.
As for fear and punch having shorter range. Sure. They're also instants. Fear affects a number of nearby enemies. Fade and bubble affect the behavior of all enemies. Cyclone is spammable. Cyclone is a 1.5 second cast and only affects one target. Fade reduces the threat on the healer (temporarily). Cyclone increases the threat on the one targetted mob greatly! I don't really know what sort of threat signature bubble has, maybe someone who knows could chime in, that would be interesting!
All this variation among the tools provided to classes is interesting. There's a lot of different limitations and options that the different classes have to work with. I dont' think "lol you don't need one of your powers" is interesting. Blizzard provided the druid class with cyclone. It's a useful tool in a wide variety of situations.
I don't understand why you're acting as this is some kind of competition between healers. Or somehow trying to prove me wrong in some internet shouting match. Sorry, I'm not wrong. Cyclone is useful to defend myself as a healer, the distance reduction will make it slightly less useful. That's unfortunate. End of Message. If your thesis is some wankery about how druids have it "too good", I'm not interested. Or even if you're somehow just playing armchair game designer and claiming various classes don't need the abilities they have, that's not interesting to me either. I mentioned other healers for comparison because I think it's interesting to compare various healers and what tools they have for various situations, such as tank healing, group healing, panic healing, and *other forms of defense* against death.