I'm wondering if mid-level materials will be a much better bet. Having leveled every profession at least once, and most of them 2-3 times, I have always found the middle range to be the worst for finding materials in the AH. After all, lowbies can farm copper or peacebloom and both are found in huge amounts throughout starter zones.

But starting with briarthorn, or mageweave cloth, or mithril ore, supplies start to thin out pretty severely. I'm thinking that in the next couple of weeks I'm going to want to stockpile stuff like kingsblood, mithril ore/bars, silk/mageweave cloth, medium leather, and so on. I'm betting that if I went to the AH on my server right now, there would be page after page of linen cloth and copper ore, but only a handful of those other items. I think that's where the money will be within a week of the expansion going live.

I figure I'll also try to stockpile a fair amount of tBC materials as well, because those might be in shorter-than-expected supply as well, as people power-level their new characters. Remember, not only are there new races and new race/class combos, but the old world revamp means people will play just to see that content as well. Even if players slow down or stop altogether upon reaching tBC, they'll be able to advance those professions.

The weird thing is that it seems that Blizzard is working harder than ever to de-emphasize gold. You have fewer spells to buy anymore. Mount and riding skills are cheaper, and with the boost to the initial flying skill you don't really have to spend the 4k or 5k necessary to advance it. Gear looks easier and easier to get without spending gold. From what I've seen, quests will reward 8-10 gold, and I can only imagine what you will get from daily quests at 85 (20? 25? 35 per completion?). Right now I've got about 25,000 gold across my characters, and no real idea how to spend it. I'm looking to make more gold mostly out of inertia. This isn't a complaint, mind you. It's just that I keep stopping myself and wondering why I'm still trying to earn gold.