Okay, some backstory. I define myself as a "casual" player, the kind that doesn't really raid at all (not the kind that bitches at Blizzard on how "hard" everything is... I'm not the reason they invented LFR), and I spend most of my time just faffing about. I haven't played seriously since the end of Wrath, and I was not playing WoW at all for most of Cata.
I just dinged 90 yesterday on my Brewmaster monk (yes, my first 90, I only got back into the game a couple months ago). I'm decked out in pretty much quest greens. I never bothered with the dungeons, even while leveling. My average item level is 426, most of it from Kun-Lai, I hit 90 before I really got anywhere in Townlong or Dread Wastes.
I've thought once or twice about doing some minor gearing up through heroics (actually running them for the gear), but I put it off based on what happened back in Wrath when I first leveled my prot pally to 80. As an alt, I dinged 80 toward the end of the expansion, and while I could run the heroics easily (I'd seen them enough on my shammy), I would usually get some kickback from raid-geared players, the ones that were looking for a quick-and-easy run for their badges. This would range from snide remarks to "n00b" or "L2P" comments, flat-out insults at how much I sucked as a player (based entirely on my gearscore), and even getting kicked from the group once or twice. All because I had the audacity to run dungeons that were level- and gear-appropriate for a freshly-dinged tank. Power creep on gear right now is ridiculous, and I know any dungeon I enter will be filled with four other people way beyond where I am.
Bearing in mind I'm probably catching most of this because I'm a tank. I enjoy playing them, and leveling as them, for the fact that they're extremely hard to kill under normal solo gameplay.. things like doing group quests by myself, or getting a quest to kill six snow moose, and pulling them all at the same time. That sort of thing. But, on the flip side, I actually do know how to play them. I read the posts here at at EJ, I watch the videos and such. Gear aside, I'd probably be fully capable of tanking LFR.
So my question is: Is the "lol, get outta here n00b tank" thing still going on? If I were to start running some dungeons tomorrow (I'm not even eligible for heroics yet), with a bunch of people who would probably prefer everyone in the group have 525+ ilevel, I think I'm still going to end up catching a lot of flak for that, and it's simply not worth it. But I would like to get some better gear, even if it's just dungeon drops and one or two pieces of Justice gear. Even a slight bump like that would make dailies easier and so on.
Everybody's got to start somewhere, right? I'm absolutely confident I can tank well (well enough for heroics, anyway), it's just getting other people to believe I can tank well when all they look at is gear score.