What is the best possible way of pre-raid gearing a character?

[Ninotchka]

You will have a week of normal/heroic before mythic opens. Any decently organized raiding guild should probably run multiple normals and heroics with a gear funnel active the first week, and then hit heroic one more time as a warmup exercise before crashing into mythic.
But yeah, crafting seems at best a backfill or gold sink rather than a gear plan. And people diss challenge mode dungeons, but if you get to 100 on the second day and run it each day until normal opens, you've got 17 chances at that LFR-quality challenge mode epic.

[Satori]

If you don't have Garrosh heirlooms, you can get a ilvl 620 weapon from silver proving grounds.

[Delaios]

Engineering helmets are still quite sweet, but it's possible those will be nerfed before it goes live to bring engineering in line with other professions.

What's there to nerf about the goggles except the required level?

[DeadmanWalking]

If you are in a guild that will be clearing the bosses in week 1 of raid release then you only need heroic dungeon blues and crafted gear, the rest is just a crutch for people to make up for thier lack of skill and your group does not sound like a group that lacks skill.

[rinleezwins]

If you are in a guild that will be clearing the bosses in week 1 of raid release then you only need heroic dungeon blues and crafted gear, the rest is just a crutch for people to make up for thier lack of skill and your group does not sound like a group that lacks skill.

Not necessarily. Once you are done with Heroic and you are waiting for Mythic, you might still have some 630 rare pieces that could be upgraded from a source other than raiding.