i see only 2 real issues there :
-threat
-survivability
mana dependence is not an issue if you have enough threat generation, you can manage it;
poor gear and talent design is also not an issues by itself, but it leads to poor survivability,
having no taunt is a hard hit for many encounters, but it is not a death sentence
they went from being able to tank many real things in 40 ppl raid content to being able to make 60lvl dead mines run a little faster;
i call it a nerf because it made prot paladins much less viable in raids overall;
you were mistaken on paladin’s bad threat generation before 1.9;
while having less survivability, less defensive cd and no taunt,
paladins were not bad at single target threat, in some scenarios they could overthreat a warrior,
there are multiple evidences of using prot paladins on MC/BWL progression runs for boss tanking, and they were used on reason
I had a paladin for a while and (when I had the coinage to do so) switched between ret and prot, depending on what the run needed and what the other guildies were bringing to the fight. I primarily used ret while questing. I don’t recall one instance of going ret in a dungeon run or raid; I was used quite a few times as the off-tank, and supplemented heals to assist the designated healers in the run.
You hit the nail on the head with that “learn how to use your FULL toolkit.” (Emphasis is mine)
Equip: [When struck in combat has a 3% chance of stealing 35 life from target enemy.]
Equip: [When struck in combat has a 1% chance of dealing 75 to 126 Fire damage to all targets around you.]
//////
Naglering
Binds when picked up
Unique
Finger
50 Armor
+10 Stamina
Requires Level 54
Equip: [When struck in combat inflicts 3 Arcane damage to the attacker.]
Equip: [Increased Defense +5.]
Force reactive disc is still BiS regardless of its scaling i believe. I just didn’t include it because of the durability damage it invokes and having to carry 2 on you a lot of the time. Love the video and the gear you are wearing… did you ever try the fields out in WPL?