Any +hit over the 289 that shadow priests need is basically
considered a "waste" because you could have itemized for some OTHER,
beneficial, stat in place of that hit. Always try and be at or +/-
(near) that magic number, and then start stuffing spellpower, haste,
and crit until the murlocs come home.

Keep in mind that the 289 hit he's referencing includes the hit we
shadow priests get from our 3/3 "Shadow Focus" talent. You -could-
drop those talent points, which would increase your required hit
rating to be 368. (Something to consider if all this +hit gear you
have is better than the non +hit gear you have)

If you're short on cash for gems, you can also trade in Stone Keeper
Shards for honor points which lets you buy gems, or use your emblems
of triumph, traded down to heroism, in exchange for gems (20 for
primary color, 10 for secondary).

Haste doesn't really stop benefiting us with these new changes. The
more you have, the better, (obviously, though, you can't ignore other
stats -- firing off spells super fast doesn't matter much if they're
not packing any spellpower/crit punch. :)

At current upper levels of gear, I've seen posted on sites like
www.shadowpriest.com that haste values in the 700 - 900 range are
rather optimal.

Finally, don't forget to check sites like http://be.imba.hu for your
toon to see what things you _could_ be forgetting about, like certain
enchants and such, and where you could be raiding to get better,
beneficial gear. Finally, don't be afraid of other spriests. We love
spreading the facemelting love, and the more of us that can pew pew
with the best of 'em, the better!

Replace the gems. Gold isn't hard to get and you'll be better off with SP gems. Direct answer is that you're gimping yourslef with 450 hit because you're wasting a stat. You can't get a higher chance to hit than 100% so hit over that (over 289/263) is better repurposed to some other stat. If you have hit gems, go buy at least blue spellpower gems (Runed Scarlet Ruby). Sorry, gold is SO easy to get that it's simply not an excuse... do the 2 random dungeons and you'll have 50g in addition to the emblems. Do a few daily quests (the Shadow vault ones are FAST) and you get 13g per... that's an easy 100g per day from 2 instance runs and 10 mins of questing.

Having a higher hit rating won't do you any harm unless you could replace some of it immediately for spellpower/haste (re-gem, check glove enchant, etc). The hit figures included in the article assume you have 3 points in Shadow Focus and 3 points in Misery - most shadow priests do but it's worth checking before you start swapping your hit out for something else.

And yes, great to see a spriest column!

shadowpriest.com *cough*

any hit over your 17% cap (289 for Horde, 263 for Alliance with access to a Draenei) is a waste of stats; it doesn't do you any good above that point.

you want to have at the very least 360 (with shammy totem) or 400 haste, to fit 2 full Mind Flays into a fully-talented, 5.5 second Mind Blast cooldown. the only limit is at 1640 haste, which puts the global cooldown at 1 second, which cannot be reduced further.

it is pure waste to have hit that high. you can't benefit from the 103% chance to hit any more than you can a 100% chance to hit. Replace those gems with *anything* and you will benefit.

Well not to call you out Tarannas but your gems in your "naxx" gear are epic which means you regemmed them with epic hit gems when 3.2 came out. Were you not at hit cap at the time you did that? Also change out your meta for Ember Skyflare and even blue quality sp gems would be better than your hit and intellect gems. Also spell pen does nothing for us in pve. In addition to this awesome new column an amazing resource for us is www.shadowpriest.com, one of the spec/class sites I have seen.