I'd seen in a recent sorcerer discussion thread mention the idea of wanting an alteration staff added to the game. I also know the idea of a "one-handed spell weapon" has long been requested due to wanting to do a spellblade playstyle. Some common ideas for this include making some sort of offhand equippable rune that doesn't require multiple weapon styles for all the existing sets, or create a mythic weapon, or create "quarter staves".

But I wonder if with the weapon visual refreshes, if this presents a simpler way to set up the possibility of one-handed magic weapons in the future.
Just make the current staves use more two-handed animations once they get to their visual refresh.

The staves are currently listed as two-handed weapons, but almost all of the animations are your character wielding them with their right hand only.
If they make the current staves truly utilize two hands in combat, then they could simply add alteration staves or some other form of magic staves as being one-handed. This allows them to reuse the same models for any new gear added, and possibly even reuse the older animations.

I'd seen someone in that sorcerer thread mention they would like the idea of an alteration staff to take more tanking skills and allow an ice staff to be more DPS focused for wardens.

I personally would just like to be able to have a staff in my left hand and a sword in the right. Especially since staves are already mostly used with one hand, it just makes my current setup feel empty. And any new introduction of a new staff type could make dungeons surge in popularity again, while also not necessarily needing to effect transmute numbers– just to keep things at the balance level ZOS currently employs.

If using it with a melee, light attacks could be the melee weapon and heavy attacks could be the alteration staff, with it allowing to recover both resources if you have a melee equipped with the staff. If not, it's just magicka restored.