Hello!

I'm new at this too, but thought I'd share my opinion anyway. My goals are pretty much the same as yours; I'm aiming at PvE content, especially instances, normal and heroic.

So far I'm 3 weeks in. The first 2 weeks were spent levelling 5 elemental shamans to 60. I then used the RaF bonus levels to give me a "free" level 60.99 prot paladin which I've now switched for the 1st shaman. I imagine this is a much quicker way to level that 4x shaman & 1x paladin, due to the extra firepower of the 5th shaman (outside instances, my paladin just stands there while the 4 remaining shamans do the killing...). But bear in mind the "free" level 60 isn't actually free. It cost me around 400-500g to equip that new paladin with spells & armour etc (and another few evenings to level her skinning & herbalism to 300!).

I can't contrast with other group combinations, because this is my first group, but I'm loving the combination so far and everything is easy-mode (except for a few dragons in Sunken Temple and some elementals in Dire Maul which are immune to lightning bolt - those fights were a bit more challenging!). Having the protection paladin is great - allow him to get aggro and it's hard to pul everything off.

I've not yet found need to respec anyone resto. I have a macro set up so that one shaman can heal my paladin while the others DPS, but mostly they all just DPS.