I have 280% flying on 3 characters, and will have it on a fourth once I get it to 60.

The tome is definitely worth it. Being able to fly while you level to 80 makes everything super easy. Not to mention the fact that there are places you need flying for to access in Northrend.
As for heirlooms, I use shoulders and chests. The trinkets are a waste, in my opinion. And the weapons may help, but you usually get good ones through quests anyways. I do have an heirloom gun I use on my Hunter and Warrior alts, though.
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Currently leveling my druid, level 28. Screw heirlooms, he uses old-fashioned blues. I also redid my UI to streamline it, minimize CPU usage (though it was never a problem) and make it more awesome. It's really. Really. Awesome.
Ultimo, you seem to have gold issues where you should have none. On my mage, I was able to afford epic flying a few days after reaching 80
despite wasting 2500 gold switching professions from mining/engineering to tailoring/enchanting. Now, granted, I found a little epic item I sold for 1.8k gold, but I balance that out by taking into account all the nice things I bought for myself for level 80 (and engineering being an epic sinkhole for cash). You should have a ton of gold while leveling through the Outlands (I remember getting like 200g per level or so just by leveling and selling greens(they vendor for higher than they sell in the expansions.

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Bragging: On my druid, right now, I'd sent 40 gold from my mage back when this druidy was level 6 or so. I'm now level 28 with 450g (herbalism/alchemy). If you play with the auction house, you can make a lot of money. Also, I recommend the 'auctionlite' addon, which makes the auction house less painful. It allows you to stick an item in, it will scan all other instances of that item and undercut them by an amount that you can choose. Two buttons to undercut everyone and put item on AH. It also allows you to scan the AH a few times to find average prices of most items, and will later display that in the item tooltips, allowing you to decide what to sell and what not to.
I'm great with the interface and stuff. If you guys want tips on streamlining it, making it pretty, or doing something specific with it, ask me.

. I'm not a raider or an awesome PvPer, but that I can do.
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Relatively ancient and inactive
There are addons that you can use to really make money quickly. I remember there being one for miners/herbalists which kept track of where you found the resources and plots the quickest path between those spots, so with a 280% mount you can make a ton of gold simply by following its routes. I'm sure Carbonite does this, but I hate carbonite (too many features) and I think some other addons do it too. Also, dailies allow you to get more than 50g/hour. But I don't do dailies, too boring. He still has to level (and get the gold by doing so) for four characters.
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Why? You don't get any real trinkets until at least level 50+, but I suppose they're not worth the stats. How do you have 280% flying ON 3 CHARACTERS? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? I still need it on my main. >.> Isn't it 4000 gold, you have 4000 gold? ;o
I bought all 3 when it was still 5000g each.
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I can afford epic flying for three characters on two different servers atm ;>
Also, omg look at my new weapon.

Relatively ancient and inactive
My druid is now level 38, and I have 2.3k gold on him. 2.26 of generated on him.
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Actually...I got really lucky in FoS. The next day I HoR and it dropped again. I didn't get it the second time.
And actually I make a lot of gold almost effortlessly...but I usually give it to my friends because I'm no driven by the crazy WoW market!
Most of my gold is made through quests/raids. Sometimes when I'm bored I'll farm herbs/ore and those tend to sell quite a bit. I don't know that the economy is like on your server, but you could also farm honor and sell the epic gems.
EDIT:
And grats on the Battered Hilt! I was almost going to pay for it, but I got something similar in ICC10 instead.
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When you're on your third or fourth alt, Random Dungeons become a lot less boring and repetitive than grinding and questing.
EDIT:
And Zycorax, you're coming along nicely.

Are you going to do PvP, or did you just get the necklace and wrist armor to increase your GearScore? That resilience replaces some really important stats, so you'll want to replace those sooner rather than later.
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I only started playing a week ago with a joint account. My friend at work made it sound fun, so I tried the trial version. I liked it, so I'm paying for it now. I'm so noob at this. Takes me more than a day to level. My friend levels pretty fast through Random Dungeons... but I think that gets boring and repetitive.
I'm leveling a priest in random dungeons...but that's because I've leveled one before, and its a pain in the ass to level through questing. I like staying disc/holy...well those don't survive well. XD And yes. There is a period in the earlier 30s where you get queued for SM Graveyard every fricking time...

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I'm leveling mostly by questing, but I also run through dungeons to get nice lewt. I had to redo my GUI recently (WoW broke, repair killed UI), here's how it looks:
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I am jealous of how nice you can get your graphics to look.
I'd link you guys my chars, but...
yeah...
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