Leveling Post CataclysmFollow

I ended up changing servers right before we got Cata and I'm an altoholic. I compulsively start a stable of characters so that I can sort of cover my own needs and process some of the stuff that accumulates as one levels. That worked to a degree through previous expansions, but I find it much less effective now.

In the dim and distant past, we had certain ideas about how to level a toon. For example, new players were advised to pick two gathering skills for money, but to pick herbalism/mining and skinning because of how the mini map displayed nodes. Today, I find heirlooms and LFD render crafting skills even less useful than before for leveling, while changes to the mini map mean that taking anything other than herbalism and mining means taking a loss on XP.

tl;dr -- What are your current tricks and quirks for leveling a character, particularly in a situation where that character won't have heirlooms and support from a main?

The Road of Rhode:

Take herbalism and mining. Those nodes add up and at least on our servers lower level mats often command stupidly high prices.

Do dailies early and often. I hate fishing because of the "wait, wait, wait, click the bobber, repeat and hope for a skill up" mechanics of it. Blizzard knows I hate it, so they've tied a pork chop around its neck by sometimes dropping nice stuff in the random bags and giving me a shot at pets. Fishing dailies are a good way to get a few points every day. In general, I find IF better for the cooking daily, but on any given day it is a toss up for which fishing daily is less annoying.

Do Darkmoon Faire and (while I hate PVP almost as much as fishing) take advantage of anything that gives a boost to PVP points because the darned things are often useful. For example, the "Hero of" quest rewards are still solid and the Grizzly Hills PVP dailies are close to free XP.

Cherry pick your quests; use Wowhead to help you find things like those early trinkets. Even without heirlooms, the guild XP bonus, dailies, nodes and instance quests all add enough XP that you don't really have to clear zone by zone. In general, I find that doing the highest level quests available still gives the best result.

Do the dungeon quests. Aside from significant XP, they often offer good rewards for the level.

Stop and smell the roses. It is possible to blast through levels to end game, but you miss some of the stuff that is amusing or interesting. When you start over on a new server or start a new account, you may want at least one toon at level cap. Consider having an alt that you can just use for the sake of seeing some of that other stuff. Hey, you need to build some rested XP, right?

Other Points:

Aldor or Scryer? Face it, you're getting out of Outland before it will matter much. With that said, I just haven't found a reason to go space goat, even with Alliance toons. I find the Scryer library convenient for training and I seem to end up with more signets when questing.

Which starting zone for Northrend? Borean may offer an advantage because it offers rewards like the Axe of Frozen Death but be sure to do the Kalu'ak quests in Howling Fjord.

Which starting zone for Cata? You may want some of the early quest rewards from Vashj'ir, but Firelands probably tilts the balance to Hyjal because you're going to end up having to go there anyway.

Please return your seats to the upright position and stow your trays. Thank you for reading along with Rhodekylle. I now return you to the derail of your choice, while I indulge in another beer.