Thanks for the replies so far, guys. I just picked up three trial disks from the game store (can't imagine what the guy up front was thinking when i picked up three of them ?( ). I'm going to give a few different groups a try as soon as my Keyclone payments go through (paypal sucks). Probably going to give the tried-and-true 5-shammies a whirl first off. There's something to be said for simplicity. ^^ I'm also planning on giving a brand new pally, priest, mage, lock, hunter combo a try. That will probably be a lot harder, but I've already got a system in mind that I think will work. Plus, I like the flexibility such a group would have. If I ever plan on doing heroics, I think this group has a better shot at completing lots of different content than a more conservative set of classes. Of course, if I enjoy this, there's no reason I can't run multiple 5-man groups.

I've got most of the software I think I'm going to need (Maximizer, Keyclone, Synergy, twoboxtoolkit addon), and things are looking pretty good for my (main)laptop+(4-alts)desktop setup. Anyone have any suggestions on other addons or software that would be useful?

I'm also mulling around other group make-ups that sound intriguing, such as something involving boomkin+elesham+mage. Seems like there'd be a lot of synergy there. It also seems like a tank plus a bunch of shadow priests might be fun as well, maybe throw in a lock for good measure (and CC). Would four shadow priests be enough to keep a tank healed on the higher-level stuff? I know we'd be lacking burst dps and burst healing, but VE is hawt. Plus, I could always switch one or all of them to holy for healing/damage nuking if I get bored or things get rough. With a paladin tank, I could lay a few holy damage booster debuffs on the mobs for my priests to chew up.

I'm liking the idea of starting from scratch more as I think about it. If this doesn't turn out to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, I haven't locked my characters to a bunch of superfluous accounts for three months and tossed a big chunk of cash into blizz's pocket (again). Thanks for the words of wisdom, and I'll let you guys know how my new kids work out.