Since the dawn of time Horde has been behind Alliance in terms of PvE progression. Why? Is it purely Paladins? Fear Ward? Pally buffs Horde certainly can't compare, but stance dancing warriors can compensate for the lack of Fear Ward. As of late it seems like we (Horde) are only a few bosses behind in Naxxramus and I'm wondering how that gap will be filled post expansion.

Personally I can't wait for Paladins on our side of the pond, but I don't see us catching up any time soon (Say month or two at the very least) post expansion because we will still have to gear (not to mention level) up our new Paladins. I don't know how/if Shamans will help out Alliance, but will they still stay ahead as they almost always have? I don't think I see it happening unless there's a C'thun-ish cock-block thrown in at some point.

Shaman are faster to level than Paladins so alliance gets easy-mode. Come on, you should know this already.

This thread needs to be nerfed.

Paladins do play a role in giving the alliance an advantage, no doubt about it.

Across the board, I'd say the biggest problem is that few servers(Mal'Ganis and who else?) have enough raiding population to support multiple raiding guilds.

If a server can only put together 30-35 people who can raid at the same times 20-30 hours a week, you simply can't have an endgame horde guild on your server.

Post TBC, the raid populations may or may not even out. For most raiders, you are comfortable in your position in a raiding guild, and rerolling horde and having an intention to raid isn't an idea in most potential raider's minds.

One good thing about TBC, is that if you're currently only able to produce 30 people that can raid 20-30 hours, you have a perfect size for TBC raids ;)

you came to the wrong forum.

1) I don't think blizzard can pump out content faster than raiders can clear it
2) Providing blizzard does have enough content out there it won't come down to alliance vs horde, but simply dedication on either side.
3) As long as Paladins arent a combination of all shaman skills + their own an alliance raid is going to benefit from having shamans, no matter how slightly, so they have to gear up their shamans too.

All that aside, I can totally agree on the population side of things being the biggest drawback.

Big difference between DPS spreadsheets and asking "what if..", "what if" being the phrase of choice of the wow-general forum goon in the 'serious discussion' threads.