I meant overhealing specifically as it pertains to +healing gear vs. regen gear, I've certainly seen it often brought up in other contexts.

+heal gear isn't responsible for overhealing though. All it does is make each healing spell more mana efficient.

I'd definitely say though that you shouldn't load up on +heal gear at the expense of mana/5, but it ultimately depends on the fight regarding which way to lean. Personally, I tend to go for +heal when I know the fight will be short or when I'm allowed breaks long enough to take advantage of my spirit bonus. Otherwise, I'm going to switch some pieces out for a decent mana/5 set.

Every point of +healing that you get makes every point of mana, and thus every point of mana/5 more valuable.

Every point of regen that you get makes +healing more valuable.

The answer is obvious: You want a mix of the two.

I swap +healing and +mana gear depending on the fight involved. Something like Nefarian I use mostly +healing as I don't tend to run out of mana much and +healing is really important on warrior yells for example.

Conversly, long mana intensive fights where you are doing a lot of spot healing and not getting breaks to spirit up such as Hakkar I wear more +mana gear.

You should gear up your paladin. :o

I would agree to that. As much mp5 as I have, the mana regen doesnt keep up with the ability to save a tidy sum of mana on each spell cast by ranking down.

In each fight I know I will use a certain spell more often than others due to the nature of the event. I know my regen rate and the cost of the spell. This "time until the spell is free" is a running tally in my mind that I keep track of so as to extend my active healing time as long as I am able. This of course is precluded by the status of being full mana where my regen has zero benefit; I just use my mana then to prevent being full mana.