I love her scenes with Mac, and her scenes with the others too (Messer in Heart of Glass, Hawkes in the last episode, her coin toss with Sid in Azreal (i think) etc.
I also like seeing her outside the lab and being on-call to the crime scenes - we never really got so much of that with Sid or even Hawkes as an ME (except for Hush).
She and Sid can bring a really welcome twinkle of humour to this show. I hope the production team can make it happen!
Personally, I'm trying to think it will, especially since -A- Claire Forlani seems to have guested in more episodes than originally contracted for, due to our welcoming response; -B- since she's not the only actor from the show to try and take other contracts during the off-season; -C- Gary Sinise is listed as a producer on just about every episode she's guested on, and if he's been so carefully involved in evolving Mac and Peyton's relationship, I don't think it can be tossed aside, or done only thru conversation about her instead of seeing her on the show.
PAC-FAN!
It's gonna be a loooooong summer (unless or especially if it is a cliff-hangar of sorts...
Argh.