Mages have Evocate, and thus stack spirit, and locks have various other regen mechanics.

They've had these from the get go, whereas our regen mechanics have been rather abysmal.

A passive bonus from shields would certainly be nice, but somehow I don't think that blizz will think of that. ES giving a hp5 bonus, WS mp5, LS a dmg bonus to lightning spells would be nice, and give us a bit more flexibility in our shield choices, even if they still retain the charge mechanics

Those shield changes would be very welcome and certianly be nice additions.

I do not know any mages that stack spirit.. They may have a spirit set for grinding evocates but otherwise its rather low on their priority list of stats.

Yeah, most mages (including the mage threads here) will bemoan itemisation points spent on spirit as wasted. Hardcore mages will own a spirit-heavy staff with a spirit enchant to weapon-swap in at evocate time, but that's it. Mages stack damage and crit and take the int they get given. Warlocks stack stam and damage, and also crit and hit if they're destruction rather than affliction. Shadow priests stack dmg.

Actually, it's that last one more than anything. Ele shaman shouldn't be as good DPS as mages or warlocks anyway. It's fair enough that mages and warlocks are better, since shaman provide more buffs and utility. But to argue that ele shaman should have to focus on a wider variety of stats while shadow priests have their current mechanics is silly. If that was a real rationale, shadow priest mechanics would be changed too.

Some kind of statement as to what Blizzard want shaman to be capable of is really needed. It's a bit of an official forums complaint-post favourite to say that Blizzard never post to the official shaman forum, but it's true nonetheless. We don't know why the nerfed ele shaman. Is it because they don't intend ele to be raid viable? Is it because they legit thought it was scaling too well? No-one has any idea. I was probably going to end up resto again anyway once our focus is on 25-man instead of Kara, but I really feel for those who are currently raiding 25-man as elemental and taking gear accordingly and who may end up in the cold because of this.

You'll notice that on any mage items, there will be spirit. Probably a bit more than what we get, but they have that nice 1400% regen button, in addition to mana gems, as innate regen methods.

And IIRC Mages have a Spirit/4 divisor rather than our Spirit/5 for mana regen.