I honestly have to laugh at all the different voodoo approaches to picking stats that people have. Get X until the third day of the month, then take Y until your first son is born then it's Z all the way until you are level A, then take Q, and blah blah blah.

There are some fairly decent rules of thumb, like getting hit is a fairly safe bet until you're capped. Know why? No, it isn't because hit is just soooo awesome, it's because for its budget cost, it blows everything else away (meaning you will generally get more hit for a given piece of gear, so the upgrade will be greater). However, even these rules are subject to interpretation, and while I know I'm a pretty anal person about it, some of you could seriously use some education on the subject. To point, I'll make a controversial assertion: There are times, even before you are at the hit cap, when you might take crit/haste/spellpower over similar amounts of hit rating.

Haste is not crap, and it doesn't have diminishing returns. It has one HUGE advantage over crit and that is that it takes RNG out of the picture. You get X haste, that's what you got, just like spellpower. You get crit, and ya, over time it's going to provide X dps, but is it going to provide it when you need it? Maybe, maybe not. To be clear, I'm not saying crit sucks either, because its fun, decent, and has tons of other play as well, like elemental oath.

Bottom line - If you want a rule of thumb, sure, pick one of the ones listed here and go with it. If you're serious about really figuring out what is the best for your toon, you have to consider where your toon is now. The gear you have will always affect this decision, and BY FAR the best way to make it is to use some of the theorycrafting tools out there like RAWR. There just is no substitute if you're serious about it.