Only good tanking gear I have gotten has been from instance quest rewards. My paladin is still pretty bad, maybe 11k hp and 430 def.

I'd just quest it out, forget outlands instances. There are quite a few 'collect one', or 'interact with x number of' type quests that are multiboxing friendly. Any quest that interacts with an object that's part of the environment seems to be giving credit to the entire group, si I'm having to skip very little.

I'm not rushing by any means, I've messed around in instances and spent probably 4-5 hours camping meeting stones and ganking but it's lookin at 10-12 hours per level at this point.