When I started my first team (5 shamans) I ran them from lvl 1 to 60 with their lvl 1 gear and even did instances with that same gear.

When I reached lvl 60 I just went to hellfire and did the quests there to gear.

After that I ran into instances again until I hit lvl 70. Then ran to northrend and realized that I need a tank. 5 minutes later I gift leveled a paladin and entered with him being nude in the ramparts. He ran almost nude until he reached lvl 68. This helped alot to boost his defense skills mostly because I had one lvl 70 resto shaman spamming heals on him while he was eating all the hits like a meat punchbag with no avoidance at all.

Don't let that gear score crap ruin your joy of the game. Up to level 70 you can do all the instances and quests practically nude and with a very high success rate.