What's the point in doing scouring of caldeum?
Do we get cash or goods if we save citizens?
Solution 1:
Every citizen you save drops an amount of gold equivalent to what a white mob in the current act/area/difficulty would drop, complete with the randomness that entails. Sometimes you can get thousands of gold for saving just a few citizens.
You also get a small exp bonus at the end of the quest depending on how many you saved.