Spell haste seems to be the new interesting stat for gear. Just about all of the new 2.3 heroic and ZA mage gear has spell haste on it (and so do some of the healing pieces). I'm just not sure if it's worth it.
I would like to work out the mechanics of spell haste so that I can come up with a damage comparison formula. However, this'll take some work since I will need to determine a formula for average MPS. Fun.