Blimey, this is really showing the wow snobs :P
Why should non-raiders get Tier gear?
a) Cos it looks cool, and it might not neccesarily be their fault they can't raid. If they're willing to put in all the man hours doing heroics each week, why the hell not?
I actually resent people calling it "Welfare tier". Welfare tier would be if it was just given for nothing. If people don't have the guilds or the connections to be able to actually raid to get the gear, like the priveledged "Elitists", it takes a LOT of time and a LOT of dedication to actually slowly build up all of the armour to get your armour current and up to date. Diminishing this time and effort as simple handouts is demeaning to all the work they've put into getting it.
In truth, most people with any kind of raiding guild/team would probably get the normal tier with SO much less effort and time than them, that if anything, getting a large group to boost you through normal raids to get more gear would be the Welfare tier :P If people are actually that annoyed that people get Tier from valor, I highly doubt that many of them are in full heroic armour just yet.
That said, you REALLY think this is the end of the topic/news on this? If you can't get good enough armour from valor... what would even be the point of it? People will be in LFR and never step into heroics anymore. Blizz has done SO much work to force casuals to come and play each week to wrack up their points... I don't see them ditching this plan anytime soon. There's more to this than we all think.
I think this is going to be what the LFR armour is going to be.