Currently all the beginning Pandaria quests reward i272 gear. The one exception for me was a i404 weapon. I made it to level 86 and about half way through the first zone.

I hope you mean 372 and not 272....

but yes, by the time MoP hits, most people (the vast majority of players) will be in mixed 378 and 384, but people questing from 1-85 would find themselves in 319/333 mixed gear.

sorry i372 typo

For all the complaining about the new quest reward system, one thing it does right is address this problem. Not every quest will reward gear, but if it does, you are guaranteed to get gear that your class can use. This means you will have almost a full set of quest gear within an hour of landing on Pandaria.

You mean I won't go the whole effing zone without the one piece I need to get into dungeons on my Shaman? I'mma lookin' at you, Hyjal, bane of my leveling alt existence.

You got to remember, then, when you level up your new monk after MoP hits the live servers, that you'll not do heroic dungeons at all to level up, so I'm guessing your average ilvl will be around 330 by the time you hit leve 85 and be able to sail to Pandaria. Thats about 40 ilvls lower than the first greens there... yeah, I think you'll feel the difference.