Personally, I'd love to see these back, but with a very different reward set-up. I don't want them to be prerequisites for other content (except additional quest chains) or to give out gear with ilvl higher than the concurrent LFR gear.
Ideal rewards would be: a reasonably significant amount of JP or VP (up to 1000 JP or 250 VP) (perhaps having a choice between JP/Honor or between VP/Conquest), substantial reputation gains with a given faction (2000 - 6000 rep, total), frivolous/aesthetic minor glyphs (along the lines of mages'
Glyph of Conjure Familiar or green fire for warlocks), mounts (i.e., a blue recolor of Ashes of Alar), and battle/companion pets. Appropriate other rewards would be epic gear up to LFR quality, transmog gear, and some of the current rare-quality BoP crafting orbs (Spirits of Harmony, Chaos Orbs, Frozen Orbs, etc.).