Starting over - advice from those that have

[Stabface]

Seems like a lot to throw away. Depending on how many toons you have right now to transfer, maybe you can consolidate down to 3 accounts, then open up 2 new RAF accounts or use the existing ones and boost your new alts?

[ILikeTwins]

To be honest with you it is not that bad to level up toons even without RAF. If you have a decently geared druid tank amongst your druids then it would only take about a week to get a group of new toons from 1 to 80.If you are really used to the RAF bonus from 1-60 then it might seem harder but it honestly flies by pretty quick. You wouldn't have RAF after 60 anyway so if you already have a bunch of toons around 60 then you can just level those.

If you really want RAF then I would suggest that you just get a bunch of vanilla wows and use those to RAF up to 60. The only thing you wouldn't be able to do is make a blood elf or draenei. If you really want those races then look for warchests that are on sale. Transferring those toons that you make would be cheaper than completely starting over it would seem. Especially if you need to buy expansions for all of them.

[Firstcow]

Owltoid, DO NOT get new accounts or use RAF anymore. Now 1-60 is so easy to boost that it's not worth paying the money. Here's a good strategy to level up 1-60 without burning yourself out.
Note that this works only if you make a druid feral and boost only 4 other characters, not 5.

1. DO NOT boost more than 2 hours at a time, ever! Otherwise you get burned out. So every day do 2 hours of boosting and maybe in the weekends do more but take breaks every 2 hours.
2. Lvl 1-10. Just level up normally without any boosting.
3. Lvl 10-18. Deadmines.
4. Lvl 18-22. Stockades.
5. Lvl 22-35. Scarlet Monastery. Only the CATH side, don't bother with the other wings.
6. Lvl 35-45. Zul'farrak.
7. Lvl 45-55. Upper and Lower Blackrock Spires.
8. Lvl 55-58. Hellfire Ramparts.

On average you will get about 2 levels per hour this way, from 10 to 58, so the total is about 24 hours of play time. If you play 2 hours every day during week days and 8 hours in a Sat and another 8 hours on Sun, you can have a new team in one week, and you paid no extra money. Just be consistent and TAKE BREAKS every 2 hours.

[Drommon]

I have often thought about starting over myself because I know way more now than I did when I started . What has stopped me was the amount of time that I already put in. If you are willing to let go of what was done without regret then do it. What I would do though is try to find a way to use what you have and maybe use heirlooms to give a boost in XP for the new toons. But it sounds to me you want to RAF a bunch of toons to 60 from scratch.

My Pally team was RAFfed to level 42 and then RAF ran out. I leveled them to 78 and today they are 11 days played. Thats a lot of time. I also have a mixed bag of horde and alliance toons at 60 as well. Today I wished that I raffed 5 of each class to 60. I would have started with Pallys, then shaman and so on.

If you are going to start over please have some very clear goals (it sounds like you do). Because you are giving up a LOT.

[kate]

It depends, in part, on what your time is worth.

If I were going to start over, here's how I'd do it:

Keep 1 main account that has an 80 for boosting.
Buy 4 copies of Vanilla (not battle chest or WOTLK - I suspect that once Cataclysm comes out there will be a new battle-chest or deal that offers WOTLK cheaper, and you don't need the expansions until then)
Link them via whatever RAF method is optimal
Boost like mad - getting 1 of everything on the 4 vanilla accounts to 60.
Roll 1 of everything you don't have on the main account, quest in a group/grant levels as needed to get all of those to 60.

I've been thinking about doing something similar, but I'm going to wait until after Cata launches probably to be able to best decide what to do.

Edit: In Cata, guild "talents" will allow you to get a 10 and 20% bonus to leveling speed, from some of the things I've seen - basically replacing the heirlooms. I don't know if it will be cumulative with them, but there's that. Also, we don't know what other kinds of things will come out yet. Leveling 1-60 in Cata may be REALLY easy compared to now, and it will certainly be different.