What I do like about the police band missions: They give me something else to do other than the ungodly number of street sweeping missions the regular contacts hand out like candy, or the mini arcs that have more missions in them than the main story arc.
What I dont like about them: Two things.
First, the first time I enter a main zone, I get a new detective on my contact list, even for zones that Ive already out-leveled. This is especially acute because all the new contacts queue up at the top of the list, pushing my current contacts off the first page. While this isnt really the fault of the PB missions, it does highlight the need for better organizing the contact list (like being able to hide completed / out-leveled contacts).
Second, in CoV, I usually do the newspaper missions alongside the missions my current contact is giving me. Both missions are usually in the same zone and when I finish up with my current contact I have, the mayhem mission ready to queue up to get my next contact. In CoH, I dont have that luxury. For example, all of my level 41 dark/dark/dark defenders regular contacts are in Founders Falls, but I can only get PB missions in Peregrine Island. I end up having to chose to either do my main contact missions or the PB missions (If I try to do both, I end up bouncing back and forth between zones even more that before I8.) The same issue holds true for people who are doing the special zones (Hollows, Striga and Croatoa.) since theres no detective in those zones.
