The overall consensus from Classic -> WotLK was that tying our aura like buffs to totems was terrible; they required redeployment on movement and could be easily squashed. Compared to the implementation of say, a warrior shout or paladin aura, they were really awkward. Overall players of the time wanted to tie big cooldowns to totems as that kept the class identity and allowed counter play by killing them or forcing movement.
Other than that, they were just screen clutter for bad buffs or dots.