For some that might be acceptable, but for a hell of a lot of people - it isn't. Being able to keep ring enchants, by levelling then dropping enchanting after they are done like now - is downsight silly and way past its expiry date.

If people want the perks of a profession, they should be that profession. I understand that its good to have ways to separate the die-hard people who will do anything to be marginally better from others (with regards to profession swapping), but surely theres other ways to cater for them.

As a tank I'm considering leveling BS and LW for xpack. Does anyone see any better professions to pick up?

BS = 3 colorless sockets (90 stamina with Wrath epic stam gems) and the bonus of crafting the BOE tank loot inhouse.

LW = 90 stamina fur lining for bracers, which is 74 more stamina than the new stam enchant.

I'm currently Alch/Ench (used to be Holy) but both are lacking any appeal in Wrath. With potion sickness, the alch trinkets are nearly useless, mixology adds 50% effect to flasks, so 325 HP to new flask.

Enchanting can now enchant rings with stamina, but its only 24, so 2 is 48, still quite a bit lower than BS/LW.

JC can make JC only gems, but the gain is far from worth it 41 stamina gem, can only use one, that's an 11 stam gain over an epic stam gem. High-end trinkets don't have stats yet, but I doubt any JC tank trinket will be worth it.

Mining adds 500 HP.

As long as BS sockets continue to stack with other enchants, I can't find a better combination than BS/LW.

From what I understand JC can have 3 of the JC only gems regardless the type, so you can infact have the 3 JC only stamina gems. They also fit to any socket so you can put them on yellow or red sockets and still get the socket bonus.

I will be sticking with blacksmithing for my paladin as well.

While mmo-champion appears low on updating profession info, Ive found some interesting stuff on some other fan site.
My reason for sticking with Blacksmithing is the great pally tanking weapon:
Titansteel Guardian - Item - World of Warcraft

Add to that sockets for items, and indeed the BoE, and probably BoP armor, and you have a great startingpoint for tanking.

I was thinking about a profession reroll too but decided to wait. Things are still in early stages and balance changes are likely (LW bracer enchant, added sockets for BS only). I'd at least wait until 3.0.2 hits Live servers and if you can stand it until the addon is released.

Yeah I really had no desire to level Leatherworking, but the fur linings are just TOO good to pass up.

So, the Socket to One-Handed Weapon is not BS only? Wasn't sure on that one.

I am not even sure that is still in the game, but it isn't worded the same way as the others(saying your).

Permanently add a socket to your bracers.
Permanently adds a socket to a one-handed weapon.

If you can add a socket to a one-hander you should be able to add two sockets to a two-hander and one socket to a shield to balance it for dks/tanks, but then it is unbalanced for warriors with TG, etc. It just doesn't make sense to me to have it at all. Blizzard at one time talked about letting armor smiths add an extra meta but I really doubt that will end up happening.

El's Inscription guide is reporting that the cooldown on glyphs is gone in the current build.

El's Inscription - WoW Inscribing Guide

I am under the impression that Tankadin spelldamage (now spellpower) MH is going extinct with the changes to the talent trees (% of stam converted to spellpower). That doesn't make choosing BS bad, just different reasons.

Only at the current level 70 state of things. At level 80 the Titansteel Guardian is definitely the current highest threat option a Protection Paladin can choose. This is largely because in WotLK caster weapon's melee DPS is also scaling up as they get higher item level, which combined with the fact that the spell power on them still scales at the same rate, makes them better for us than just a normal melee weapon. We're basically geting twice the benefit here: The higher melee DPS and the higher spell power both benefit us.

If caster weapons were still staying at their ~41.5 DPS as they do right now, Protection Paladins would indeed be better off with a more conventional melee weapon. Or at least, the difference between them would be minute enough that we'd probably choose the melee weapon as it'd be more likely to benefit us more in other ways too if itemized well.

The LW and tailoring BoP leg kits have exactly the same stats as the non-BoP ones, they are just cheaper to make.