The VE healing back in BC days was awesome and I could instance heal the tank... Now it's sometimes enough to take care of the priests' own splash damage, it's higher return on themselves, but nothing to write home about, and the healing it can do to other has been marginalized. That's why i like to have holy nova as a backup, and put in a /cast [nostance] shadowform at the head of my dps buttons to recover from whenever i have to use it.

Edit: also my pally healer is almost always in range of one or more of the priests, so I didn't have to waste effort going all the way up to get beacon of light in the holy tree and ended up taking some extra crit talents instead.