I actually use defensive cooldowns and self-heal all the time as DPS (bloodbath, second wind). I'm constantly using some kind of self-healing on WAR as well and have been known to drop a Clemency as a PLD if it's clear the healer is struggling for one reason or another. BLM/SMN heals don't scale up with our increased HP pools, so in 3.x content they're an absolute joke. For all the 500-600 hp they restore per cure, casters are better off just trying to finish off whatever the party is fighting. Judicious application of other skills that help the party like Virus, E4E, Apocatastasis, Manawall, and Manaward are encouraged, however.
With that said, a healer that just sits there topping me off every time I hit 90% makes me facepalm. As tank, I actively use my cooldowns and self-healing skills to mitigate damage and allow the healer windows for DPS. When I look over and see the healer just standing there, jumping in circles, doing dance emotes, or spamming stupid picture macros in the party, it makes me wonder just why the hell I'm bothering to do so. It's not gonna kill you to toss out some dots or a couple of holy. I'll gladly watch my HP drop into the 25-30% range if it means the healer is making an effort to throw out some DPS. I won't kick a healer from the party for not DPS'ing, but unless they are new to the class and/or the game they probably are not going to get my commendation.
When I heal, I practically live in Cleric Stance. Standing there waiting for the tank to take damage is boring. x_x
