I'd like to know why you get so flustered over the concept of getting something besides spear at level 1 when every build out there still maxes it out first.
Are you consistently getting first blood with all that 125~ max damage at level 1 or something because it does double that at level 2 which you can't get til your champion is level 3 anyways.
Edit: I'm not sure whether or not it's been explained or not yet, but the reason to not get spear at level 1 is the same reason to not get Cait's Q at level 1 or Singed's poison. It's a complete damn waste of mana to spam it at level 1 when you consider the fact if you just wait one full bloody minute, it'll do double that.
Yeah Nidalee's traps don't do that much, doesn't mean they're not useful, they might not snare like Caitlyn's traps but in that duration someone is taking damage, your autoattacks can do more than a level 1 spear ever could.
As for people taking the heal at level 1, I assume that's really only if you (or your lane partner if you're not soloing) get hit that early. Mind, the attack speed boost can help.
In short: level 1 spear can do a maximum of about 131 damage, that's at max range, which means you can no longer do anything else.
A level 1 trap does a total 80 damage, plus the -resist to the enemy. Auto attacking once after that will outdamage your spear.
And I don't know why you think traps only tickle. Yeah, the spear does a shit ton at level 5 and max range (575 with no ability power) but the traps do a little more damage than a short range spear and have a much higher AP ratio.