What I think vs. What I do

In leveling up Daxxy through instancing, I had wondered what I would do when I hit the 55-60 range. Would I do all the Oldworld instances that I've never done at appropriate level or would I book it to Outlands as soon as I could?

There are, of course, pluses and minuses to both approaches:

Oldworld Pluses: I have never seen these instances with a level appropriate group (or in some cases, ever at all). The instances that I'm referring to include Scholomance, Stratholme, Blackrock Lair, and Dire Maul (North and West.) So, I would be experiencing new content.

Outlands Pluses: Blizzard really got the instances right in BC and beyond - they are relatively short, most times the end dumps back to the beginning (which is moot with the LFG tool), and the fights are fairly interesting.

Another plus is the loot is better; I mean, just looking at the Oldworld gear sets makes me sad to be a healing druid. A slight minus here is that I can't equip certain BC items until I'm level 60.

Oldworlds Minuses: Long, long, long! If you don't have a couple of hours, then you might as well forget getting your random reward, much less finishing more than one or two bosses. It's not so much Dire Maul that I'm thinking of, but rather Scholo, Strat, and Blackwing Lair. Even BRD was a chore trying to get through with a level appropriate group; luckily, I found a group that was willing to do the whole thing a week back or so.

Another minus is the loot stinks; yes, this is meant to be a couplet to the aforementioned Outlands plus. A slight plus is that I can equip the crappy gear if I find it's better than what I'm wearing.

Outlands Minuses: While I have some nostalgia for the BC instances as they were really where I started doing 5 mans, I know that the umpteenth time that I get Slave Pens during my leveling will become tiring. In short, the lack of variety or choices is a minus. Then again, I'm not sure how many times I ran BRD during this particular leveling experience...

So, what did I actually do?

I had put aside the random satchel LFG in favor of queuing for the harder Oldworld dungeons - DM North and West, as well as Blackwing Lair - at level 56. I had run Dire Maul: East a number of times and wanted something different.

After I hit 57 and did do a random (Dire Maul:East), I found a tank that I liked and queued with him for another (DM:E....again). So, I was maybe halfway through the level (or a bit less than halfway), took a break, and came back.

Upon my return, I decided to queue for a specific instance, and that's when I saw HC: Ramps as a choice. It seems that the decision I was looking at making when I was 58 was upon me! What would I do??

I ended up queuing for HC:R just to see if I could heal it. Once I saw that I could, well...I kept on queuing for it. Yes, I chose nostalgia and loot over new (to me) content. The length of the instances played a pretty big part in it as well - hop on, run an instance or two, hop off. Badda bing badda bang!

...ok, maybe it'll be hop on, run instance after instance after instance, and hop off at bedtime...yeah, that's what'll probably happen.