So you're saying that as a DPS spec, you regularly traded-off DPS to heal yourself in Cataclysm raid content?
Of course these abilities are situationally valuable. They always have been. You want to heal yourself after dropping to 1HP on Chimaeron before the stacking phase, for example. There's no reason for DPS players to tradeoff DPS in the vast majority of fights. You didn't see rets using selfless healer, or DPS DKs death striking, or shamans healing waving themselves, etc. It just wasn't necessary. The healers would take care of it, no problem.
If you pre-suppose that the healers are incompetent, that changes the equation. But there's no real point in going down that road.