I was quite lucky, but i had to go Gnome twice. There is a little trick that works, depending on the situation / Game Master that might be worth to try if you already decided to go gnome.
Pay your way to gnome, level engineering till you get what you wanted, at that point, make a ticket.
Explain the Game Master how you miss your friends, lack money to transfer back and whichever little lie you come up with.
He will normally offer you a restore, which means you will loose all your progress, tell him that in the meantime you where lucky with your professions, the next offer should be a paid ( by blizzard ) transfer after 3 days to your original race / faction, if you are lucky he will as well list you up for a refound of the initial transfer you paid, i was lucky enought to get this little " trick / lie " going twice paying a total of 0.
Yes, it is indeed a lie and perhaps a little abuse of the system, but it's as well true that we would not be forced to do similar trick if they tought a bit better about how to make Engineering Tinkers work !
- Nesy