Protection warriors are still the primary tanks, despite what you read on the internets. There are some issues though ( as with paladins and druids).

A warriors problem, is that as they become better geared for mitigation, they become less able to generate threat. A decked out warrior will need a few seconds to establish agro before DPS lays into the mob. This is mostly 5 man trash mob related. Bosses will pretty much always hit hard enough to generate enough rage to hold the aggro better than any other class. A protection warrior's strength is his superior mitigation, making him the ideal tank when it counts ( bosses).

Druids(bear focused feral) will always take more damage than warriors and paladins ( assuming good gear by all). Burst damage will be more frequent, but not quite as high. They will have insane armor values, but they cannot block or parry. Blocking is important because a blocked attack cannot be a crit. However, even with great gear, they retain most of thier threat producing ability. They always take at least a little damage, and with the right talents, they can maul all day long. That means better threat against trash, but they dont have the range of threat increasing abilities a warrior does to keep up when rage isnt an issue. Still a good tank. Strength: high armor and consistent rage. Weakness: lower mitigation.

Paladins (protection) have the best of both worlds, but have a few weaknesses. Since mana starts as full as you want it to, they are not hindered by the problem of struggling to get the resources to hold hate initially. They have the best ability to tank multiple mobs, from a threat standpoint. In fact, give them 2 or more, assuming they can take the damage, and their ability to hold hate goes through the roof due to reckoning and redoubt (with holy shield). For long encounters, they suffer the same fate as warriors, since spiritual attunement wont help you much if you arent getting hurt much. Also, generating threat is very hard on the mana pool. So rather than waiting to start DPS, as with a warrior, you are now stuck waiting on mana before the next mob. Another weakness is that to produce a great deal of threat, you have to sacrifice some mitigation, due to itemization. You need more spell damage, which will probably come at the expense of stamina or other tanking stats. In short, paladins are built to tank trash mobs. Great initial threat generation, but lacking in long term consistency.

All 3 are good at every situation, but each has its strengths and weaknesses. That just means the rest of the party needs to know what these are and play accordingly.

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