Starting over - advice from those that have

[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.