After much searching through the forums, I seem to still not have a clear answer to this burning question:

For a fairly new Disc priest, should I learn to deal with A/A specs, or just forsake that for the familiarity of the past (granted I can't bubblespam anymore, which isn't happy, but new times, new methods).

Sorry this is a bit of a newb question, but can anyone give me a reccomendation one way or the other (because I'm honestly a bit terrified of trying to smite-heal)?

Learn to deal with A/A. Being comfortable with using it will prove valuable at some point.

Just spec it and start using it on trash every now and then to ease into it. Keep in mind it's an alternative and not to be used everywhere all the time.

Stat weights for healers is a tricky science, since HPS is not the end-all-be-all characteristic to shoot for, and one point of healing is not necessarily equivalent to another point of healing.

The short version for holy, which will tell you everything you need to know to select the correct gear at this point: Int = Spirit >>> haste = mastery > crit

Pick the highest ilevel item with int and spirit, and reforge crit to either haste or mastery according to preference. Always gem int and/or spirit according to socket, never using a yellow gem unless the socket bonus is intellect or spirit.

As was said earlier, AA is purely a matter of choice. It's interesting, and Blizzard seems intent on making it viable, so it's worth at least taking a look at it. When it comes down to it, however, healing (imo) is all about being comfortable with what you're doing. If the smite build throws you off too much, stick with the more traditional healing style. Both are viable and work well in the hands of practiced priest. It's worth checking out just in case you find you love it (as I have).

Worgen is the superior all-round choice. On-demand sprint will always be superior to minor stat boosts.

I took a stab at such a list a while back on the Compendium thread, but I'm not even sure this information is totally up to date with the most recent ptr changes:

Cataclysm Holy Priest Compendium

Gnome is not particularly compelling. As Elerion said, most find the Worgen racial to be the most useful, but it is going to vary fight to fight, and may be rendered less useful if you already have similar escape moves (such as the engineering belt tinker).

Heroic Presence is still viable for Dispels. Even if Blizzard "fixes" defensive dispels, Priests can still be needed to offensive dispel, especially in 10-mans where there may not be a shaman or a mage.

Also, Gift of the Naaru was majorly buffed in 4.0.6 and it may be further buffed by our talents/chakra and worth investigating. And the new Stoneform is very amazing.

It still breaks poison/disease off of us and reduces damage by 10% while active! I believe, unlike other player-dispel abilities, Stoneform also breaks stacks too, right? So whereas if a poison was stacked up to 10 times it would take another heal 10 casts to cure it, stoneform immediately clears all 10.

Yes, because you have Power Word: Barrier, which is one of the best raid wide cooldowns, especially in 25 man.

I would also say that currently, Disc is a better tank healer : inner focus every 6 or 7 GH is really powerful, added to the mastery and the higher crit chance.

To be perfectly honest, it will depend quite a bit on what other healers you are bringing to the table and the encounters. Disc doesn't look great when it comes to healing meters and how much raw output you are doing (unless you are on Heroic Halfus). However, after some initial anxiety, I've come to terms with the notion that disc's role is much more about timely heals rather than raw heals. And the toolbox for disc is pretty nifty, even if we do need a bit of a buff (such as the inc PWS change). Besides, I am specced to both disc and holy depending on the situation, so I wouldn't look at a spec choice as a set in stone.

I'm going to respectfully disagree with this. First, if you have Skada installed, you can view graphs for total Healing + Absorption, which shows discipline performing quite competitively.

Second, healing meters are very important for measuring a healer's performance and ultimately what a player of a given class brings to the table. Yes, DPS meters will tell you 95% of the story for a DPS, and healing meters can only tell you 70% of the story for healers. But a roughly 70% correlation between meters and skill is still huge data point that simply shouldn't be ignored. I'm not saying this is true of you personally, but most times in the past I've heard someone make the "healing meters don't matter as long as you kill the boss," it was made by someone who was a bad healer. And you could dig into the logs to prove it, not just from meters, but also reaction time, gearing decisions, and so on.

Yes, healing meters aren't perfect, but they are a measurable number that's highly correlated with performance and skill. It's foolish to ignore useful data just because it comes with error bars.

Now there are some situations where some healer's ability simply isn't measured in the meters. Things like Life Grip, Power Word: Barrier, Rebirth, and Mana Tide are good examples of this. But on the other hand, you don't need meters to justify the value the class brings in these situations. If your Nefarian strategy is based around three discipline priests using Power Word: Barrier and you can heal the AoE damage because of it, you don't need a healing meter to tell you that discipline priests were useful. In situations where it's not clear who is performing well, meters do a great job of shedding light on the issue.