x1Pally x4 Shaman, or a mixed team? (For PvE)

[Ken]

So adding a mage nets you an Int buff, 10% spell crit, a lot more micromanagement, and -1 chain healer.

You only need 1 dedicated healer for heroics and raiding. No need for extra chain heals. There isn't "a lot more micromanagement" if you group your spells properly and use cast sequences properly. In general all spells from any class can be categorized in general categories like aoe/instant cast/regular/DoT/etc. I personally categorize them into: single target dps cast sequence, multi target dps cast sequence, close combat cast sequence, spell interrupt
Also, I prefer 'real' AoE healing from a priest.

It just snowballs from there, as you get a wider range of classes, you get a wider range of buffs, but they become more unwieldy as their various weaknesses come in to play as well.

More unwieldy? o_O
Seriously, any class can do DPS fine with a castsequence. And what you might call "unwieldy" is something I might call a challenge.

You want to put shamans in cloth? Sure you CAN do that, but it's everything but desirable.

You're basically saying that Mages, Warlocks, and Priests aren't viable classes to play, period. Because their only gear option is cloth.

No, you're making statements that I did not make.

As you GET the mail drops, please feel free to regear your Shaman. But as I'm farming instances, if gear drops that I can use and will benefit my toons - I'm looting and equiping it. More DPS is more dps, no matter how you swing it.

Sure, but when you equip your shaman with cloth, I wouldn't find that shaman "geared out". Of course its DPS will be improved, but you haven't finished gearing that shaman, since he's still wearing cloth.

[edit]

P.S. "Cloth" and "Leather" are listed under the "Skills" tab for shaman.

O RLY! I know that, one of my shamans wears leather atm ;)

If they didn't want shaman to ever wear those items, it wouldn't be available to them. There are many cases where cloth items are more desirable than mail. There are many more cases (consider that boomkins and ele shammies -- at least at 70 -- desire similar stats) where leather > mail. On my Sunwell raiding enhancement shaman, I would've given up twice as much DKP to get my hands on the leather helm from Illidan (sadly, I lost to a higher-DKP fury warrior -- yes, a plate wearer using leather).

I've seen mages and pallies rolling on +spirit gear because, even if you ignore the spirit entirely, it's an upgrade.

So if you have your shamans in a cloth/leather/mail mix, you considered them all geared? I don't.