let me address something here. People have made the point ret is capable of aoe grinding, and doesn't just sit there plopping one guy at a time and doing it as such a slow pace as prot. Ret can pull 4 mobs and heal without a 50% reduction due to Divine plea. While prot could try to pull 8 and have trouble doing so since there's no heals, or self heals are relatively difficult trying to cast with 8 mobs on you and the 50% heal reduct; not to mention the slow ass pace of killing them all. Btw you would have to do seal of wisdom and judge wisdom and not use many other spells to heal yourself even with divine plea up (remember the small mana pool of a leveling prot pally) and pretty much only consecrate and holy shield / hammer of righteous. Ret has an endless mana pool if you manage to keep 200 at all times and can burn 4 targets down in about 1/3rd the time of a prot pulling 8 using consecrate DS CS Judge and divine plea occasionally and all he has to worry about is using flash heals and judging every cooldown.
-Ret ftw leveling unless you have plans of switching specs, in that regard i'd go ret with tanking gear on (except the weapon/shield silly) and you're fine! fine. the de
-That post was too long and inefficient stupid ret pally.