User blog comment:Salubri/Death in the Bleach Universe/@comment-4932369-20120601021310/@comment-1489595-20120606005355

Probably. There are plenty of Gotei characters whose importance to the storyline, such as it was, concluded ages ago. I'm sure there are plenty of fans of Hisagi but he could, for example, be killed off without any major repercussions. His moment in the limelight ended with the death of Tosen. Since then he has just been a figure popping up once in a great while to mouth a couple of sentences and disappear again. Following the trail Kira blazed (if Kira is indeed dead).

It seems Tite Kubo has finally decided to put these odds & ends characters to meaningful use in this last story arc.