It made little sense for the 40y QoL being tied to a tier set bonus , this needs to become baseline as it feels awful losing range when you try to go for BiS gear. This phase is whatever but next phase we’ll be in a raid with large rooms and space to cover. And before you mention it , no. No one is going resto subtree that’s just stupid.
Going into resto doesn’t even get you 40yd totem auras. It’s 30yd, 50% less than the set bonus.
On the other hand this makes people clump up more (those that pay attention to take advantage of the auras) and thus get healed by Chain Heal better.
I don’t know if the devs, back in the day, had the foresight regarding the interaction between short range totems and Chain Heal - I’ll bet they didn’t and it’s just a coincidence.
People that are oblivious about positioning get no benefit both from totems and being out of range to get healed by Chain Heal.
Sadly Shamans don’t have “Grab Idiot Totem” to pull such people into the right spot. Such is life.