Thanks all - some very good suggestions there. As I noted, I'm not dis-heartened by the wipes, as I knew what to expect (though the gold drain, at 65g a wipe is an issue... lol). I hadn't considered ICC normal, and I'm now slapping my head about it too since so much of the kit in there would be upgrades. I'll definitely try that out once this 24-hour maintenance is over.

I did actually try normal ToC and after a few goes figured out the jousting well enough, but then got absolutely slammed by the first 3-boss team. I'll have to look into that, as I had counted on that as a gearing path to replace low level gear.

I've got all the smithing crafted epics on, as well as the i245 pieces, but legs, belt, hands, neck, trinkets, rings and librams are trashy i150-i187 greens and blues, which I think is holding them back.

I was actually surprised we didn't have a "new 80s gearing guide" around, and if it weren't so close to Cata, I'd happily make one. I guess what I will do is take some time to record my own path to gearing up, and post it here once I'm over this "new 80" hump.

Seal of Light also didn't occur to me for Meathook, which is poor form on my part I think, I'll run it past him too once this maintenance is over.

PvP I'm avoiding just because it's really absolutely not my thing any more, and I want to try and gear up without it if I can. Pre-gearing the tank is something I'd considered (in fact, my prot pally tank on my first team is still active and super geared), but I'm trying to avoid that too, in the vien of "what if this were my only team" sort of thing.

I'll start keeping some notes on my progress and throw it back up here as a guide for however short time we have left to Cata.