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I think you're missing a point here. A Feral Druid is optimally specced for (throwing out numbers here) 100% capable tank, 80% capable DPS with a gear swap. On fights where something is off-tanked, they can DPS at maybe 70% capacity of a DPS class in their tanking gear.
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Personally I've always viewed a dps-geared Feral Druid as a melee dps class with a slight twist of melee support, that could be roughly be compared with Retribution Paladins and Enhancement Shamans. The scaling might skew this, but from my experience of Heroic, T4, T5 and early T6, then I've to say it holds quite true.
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What's being proposed is that perhaps an Elemental Shaman, when specced for DPS and just a little healing will be a 100% capable DPS, but also 80% of a healer with a gear swap. On certain fights, I'm thinking Maulgar here, they could wear DPS gear and a healing weapon and shield, heal an off-tank until the add's dead, and then weapon-swap to optimal DPS to finish the fight. No respeccing necessary, and the fight goes faster than if the shaman was resto.
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Restoration Shamans and Elemental Shamans should use more or less the same armour, considering the proposed WotLK talents. I don't think there is much difference between the overall healing capability of a Balance Druid and an Elemental Shaman. Both talent trees provide talents that reduce the mana cost of heals, and it can even be argued that Balance Druids are better healers thanks to Nature's Grace and because Druids have more regular heals than Shamans. The main strength of Elemental Shamans is that they are not locked in a Moonkin shape or Shadow Form, and thus they will be better panic-healers. This strength is sort of negated if you decide beforehand that a dps-hybrid should help out healing during a tricky encounter.