Yes, that's the reason even T1 raid gear had spirit on them. Spirit also provided in-combat health regen in addition to mana regen, but the health regen part was removed before the game went live, in addition to the proc chance mentioned in the patch notes.

Uh, Knob, Spirit still improved health regen up until 4.0.1. It was changed to a flat percentage outside of combat, but it did increase health regen. It had more effect on melee classes than caster classes.

@Drakkenfyre

I believe he meant that the in-combat regen was removed when game hit live.
The out of combat was still available through spirit...
...Unless you were troll then : I'M REGENERATING 5 HP IN COMBAT AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT.

Quote from WoWhead user davesignal*
Currently, it appears that Health Regeneration has been standardized to one percent of maximum HP every two seconds, regardless of your Spirit, when out of combat and zilch when in combat. Trolls, however, regenerate 1.1% of their HP every two seconds out of combat and 0.11% of their maximum HP every two seconds in combat.

Ultimately, a Troll regenerates 0.055% of their HP every second in combat. This may not sound tremendous at first glance, but over the course of a five minute fight it means a Troll has the potential to regenerate 16.5% of their total HP (modified downward by how much time they spend at maximum HP). Given a source of steady, constant damage, it wouldn't be unfair to claim regeneration could easily increase your total HP by 15% over five minutes. If a fight lasts six minutes, that number rises to nearly 20%.

*( http://www.wowhead.com/spell=20555#comments:id=1231193 )

I reread his comment after I posted, and I noticed "in-combat". I thought he meant at all.