I am new to the blog system, so I am not sure if this will reply directly to your post or not, but this is for poster 17, cha1rmanme0w.

I play a resto shaman, so I know a little bit about elemental (Just from looking at the specs, to be honest. Not going to lie and say I am an expert) Anyway, it seems that the stats for elemental shammies and holy paladins are very similar. High int for crit, raw crit rating, high spell power, and haste. The only thing that is really in question is that a plate wearer is rolling on mail, and I like to think that if a tank is doing his job, that is a non issue. The healer shouldn't be getting hit with much physical damage at all, so armor values are all but useless in an ideal environment. Granted, ideal is hardly ever real, but more often than not the healers will just take a rare hit every so often, and in heroics the 500 armor difference between a cloth/leather/mail and plate item will not matter (Either way you're going down if you or someone else is not quick to act)

As I said before, I am a resto shaman. I have no problems saying that in the past I have worn boomkin gear. (And probably even some mage/warlock gear) Does it fit perfectly with my class/role? Rarely. But it works. I suppose I've heard it called "frankensteining" for a reason.

I'd also like to add that for us shammies, the stats that are wanted for resto and elemental have been pushed even closer together with the improved water shield talent. Crit is starting to become an important stat for us as it essentially reduces the cost of very expensive spells. (In many cases, it can go so far as cutting the cost in half for each crit)

In an extreme situation, you can have a healadin, a boomkin, an elemental shaman, and a resto shaman (In raids, or even some heroic runs I've run with two healers. Try it, it's fun having no downtime between bosses and more pulls) all rolling on the same piece of gear.

Now, if a healadin is rolling on something with hit rating, I'll concede that there is no excuse.