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If you have 50-100% regen talents while casting (mages, etc), spirit is very important. Once you have 650 intellect and 650 spirit, your spirit counts 1 point to 1 point of MP5, if you have 100% regen. Spirit-based regen relies upon Intellect in the algorithm now, and since patch 2.4. Most mages have insane Intellect scores, with low Spirit, which results in about 1.3 points of Spirit to 1 point of MP5. Unfortunately, Blizzard made arcane-spec mages as if they were the negation of a direct-heal class: instead of HPS we deal DPS.

The main stats needed for arcane DPS increases are Spellpower>Haste>MP5>Spirit>Crit, because of mana issues. I excluded Intellect and Hit rating in that hiarchy because those stats come automatically, or cap very low, from mage gear. Why is crit so low? Because you can't crit if you are out-of-mana, and several arcane talents make up for lack of crit%, plus most of your gear and your INT gives you some crit anyways. Spirit also counts towards Molten Armor, as you gain 35-55% of you spirit points as crit rating, which tends to raise your crit% about 5-7%. If you can solve your mana issues, Haste takes priority over Spellpower. But most mages can't solve the mana problems, and so Spellpower is giving you increased damage without the mana cost, making it more useful than Haste at that point.

The fastest DPS comes from straight Arc Blast spam, because it keeps your Arc Blast buff going with 4 stacks. You will never get out of 5-second rule mana regen rate while spamming that, but if you have mage-armor and the 50% regen while casting talent, you will spirit-regen just like you would while not-casting. I believe Elemental Shamen have similar talents for regen while casting, but I am not as familiar with Shamen.

To get back to why I would post this, it is to reinforce what Hegetaga said: there are certain items out there that would appear to be "healer" items, when there are certainly "dps" classes that could benefit as much, or more, from having them. It is even more annoying to Arcane Mages than Elemental Shamen and Shadow Priests, because Mages do not have healing "off-spec" to be able to roll on anything with spirit or MP5

My rubric might be:
10 Does the item have spirit --> goto 20 Else goto 40
20 Does the item have MP5 --> goto 30 Else goto 40
30 Print "item is healer"
40 Print "item is caster DPS, healer offspec"

I wrote this in 3 separate sittings while distracted by many other things. It is probably screwed-up in many ways and over-simplified. The point is that MP5/Spirit items need to be reviewed, because it seems that the basic loot rules of the guild put caster DPS behind everything else, unless the item happens to have a stat (hit rating) that we don't need because it caps so-low.

When you have items that have a mix of MP5 + Crit, or Spirit + Haste, et cetera, the line is somewhat blurred as to whether that is a DPS or Heals item. Not just for trinkets, but for all items. Many cloth items come-up that have MP5, Spell, Crit on them. Are crit heals really more beneficial to downing a target, than crit damage strikes? Yet the item has MP5, so it goes straight to a healer, regardless of effecacy.

MP5 increases the longevity of a healer during fights, they can stay on healing for a greater period of time, tanks stay alive, we win. That is the traditional theory.
MP5 increases the damage output of casters, they can stay on that high-mana/high-damage supernuke for longer, don't have to go into mana-conservation, DPS/damage output goes up, target dies faster, we win.

It should, then, be ascertained whether our healers are running out of mana during the fights we are doing/expect to do, or whether lack of damage due to OOM is causing a strategic problem. Having a plethora of healers who never go below 40% mana during any boss battle, but not enough damage output to evade a berzerk or enrage timer does us little good. It should also be ascertained whether mana-longevity is the primary mechanic for healers during fights, or increased healing output is necessary. MP5 never makes a healer better at healing, it only prolongs their time able to heal (or makes up for sub-par healers who overheal too-often and/or spam an inappropriate, mana-heavy, heal rotation).

If an item has Spirit + MP5, in conjunction, on an item, I would say that is definately healer first. It's all going towards mana regen, no-doubt.
If an item has an ability or set-bonus that specifically states: heals, or procs on heals, that is definately healer first. No-brainer there.
If an item has MP5, but no spirit, you then have to look at the other stats available on the item, to determine if it should be healer only, or both dps and heals roll.
If an item has MP5 + Crit is leaning toward the DPS side, and MP5 + Haste is more toward heals. Heals should be casting faster, and crit strikes are not as beneficial to heals as they are to DPS, right?
If an item has spirit, but does not have MP5, I would be leaning toward DPS casters, because they have talents/better-talents that assist with spirit-based regen during casting, and would be taking greater advantage of the +spirit.

I am trying not to involve too many discreet numbers and calculations here, because this is not, after all, Elitist Jerks. If you look on EJ, you will find that healers are discouraged from stocking up on spirit at the expense of MP5, and the main reason cited is that they don't have the talents or time during fights to be outside the 5-second rule long enough to allow for spirit-based mana regen to be as effective, point-per-point, as MP5. The practice of stating a single-stat as justification for an item to go to a certain class or spec is not as flexible or as beneficial to the guild as looking at the combination of two stats on the item. Allowing healers to stock-up on EVERY item with MP5, without consideration of and/or irregardless of whether the other stats on the item are most-beneficial to a healer over DPS, disservices the guild. An item has MP5 AND Hit rating (and the bus is going just under 55 mph.); what do you do, what do you do?

In the end, I blame Blizzard, for changing the mechanics of direct healers and direct-damage casters so that they rely upon the virtually-same hiarchy of stats and bonuses in order to improve their abilities. Blizzard turned HPS and DPS into the same mechanics, just different results (a heal, or a damage). Thus, I say that there should be times that BOTH dps and healers roll on items, and other times when healers only should roll on items, and a fewer times that DPS roll only; but blanket rules giving priority to ONE role on a stat needed by BOTH roles is unfair.