I've always been a big fan of maximizing every aspect of my raids. Since my guild has had Illidan down for a little while now I would like to focus on bringing us faster kills eeking out every minor tweak possible to push us where we need to be. Obviously gear is a factor, such as having a couple of melee with dual warglaives vs no warglaives (we only have 1 OH). However, what I would like to hear from others is how are they preparing their raids for Sunwell. How are they trying to maximize damage? mana return? tank threat? healing? Do you force your healers to all have Spellsurge? Do you force your melee to use Executioner? Do you run a warrior with blood frenzy? Do you run a survival hunter? Are you using CoR? How are you building your groups around your melee? your healers? your tank? and your casters? I realize this is a large range of questions, most of which have been extensively researched throughout this site. However I haven't seen one specific thread dedicated to bringing all of these things together in one central location.

I summary I realize that I'm asking a lot of multifaceted questions here but it can all be rolled into this: What is your dream raid matrix going into Sunwell and how are you preparing your members to maximize their raid viability for fresh content?

Also is it worth it to have certain members drop professions for Resto/Haste drums? Rotating heroisms (from resto shaman in a healer centric group)? I'm really interested in seeing what tricks of the trade some of these other guilds are using to push so much DPS on some of these WWS reports.

The answer to this question is (for 99% of raiding guilds), you put together the best raid group possible given who is online at the time. You're always going to have "what if" type scenarios but opinions on the "best raid matrix" are pretty varied. Further, raiding end-game content just gets better and better the more players get to know and trust each other. So overall while class balance matters, the continuity of a raid is so much more important.

Drums are a very noticable group DPS boost. Also, I would say they benefit DPS classes far more than healing classes. There is a pretty sizable difference between chain nuking and spam healing. Healing is not always something that benefits from haste enough that you should drop a profession for it. But if I were a Rogue/Hunter/Shaman (DPS), there's no question I would be a Leatherworker. We have a 2nd Hunter picking up drums right now. So, we have two groups running drums. These are our primary DPS groups most nights.

1: Rogue, Rogue, DPS Warrior, Shaman (resto), (Last person is a 3rd Rogue, 2nd DPS Warrior or a feral Druid)
2: Shaman (elemental), Mage, Mage, shadow Priest, Warlock (destro)
3: Hunter, Hunter, shadow Priest, Shaman (resto), (Last person is usually another DPS caster for Wrath of Air)

^ In the groups shown above, the resto Shaman in the melee group has drums and both Hunters in group 3 have drums. I need to speak with our elemental Shaman. I'm not sure he is a Leatherworker, but it may benefit him come Sunwell for BOP patterns, plus it would give us drums for that group + Heroism.

I agree.