Hmm. Equipping two 2h swords would definitely make a difference. Didn't think about that...
I had a free week last month. I took advantage by trying to farm the Raven Lord. My 85 holy paladin, ilvl 377, glyphed for damage, was taking down Talon King Ikiss in 12-14 seconds.
My 88 prot paladin, ilvl 415, was taking 22-25 seconds.
Obviously the Prot could just pull the whole instance and just burn them down, but when it comes to single target, holy is REALLY good. My Holy Shock crits were hitting for nearly 40k. Same with Denounce crits. I forget what WOG was hitting for, but it was a lot. I actually was forgetting to press that button a lot lol.
If I ever resub, I'll lock my xp, stay at 85 and get my ilvl as high above 400 as possible. I'll bet that my HS and Denounce will be hitting for over 50k. With the way gear scales, it might even hit harder at 80 than 85. I've seen vids of 80 mages burning down Lord Marrowgar 25H in like 30 seconds. 100k hits for days, and hits of a million+ when they blow their cooldowns. It took my 88 prot almost ten minutes to kill him on 10 easy mode lol.
I'll go wreck shit in ICC. I was already soloing Vortex Pinnacle at 85... And yeah, it's easier as holy than it is as prot. Just gotta remember to Repentance one of those adepts before you nuke the other.
The only advantage that prot had was standing in the bad to build Vengeance stacks as high as possible, and Blizz hotfixed that a long time ago.