What gear is needed for the first couple of instances?

[Sabindeus]

You still have some time before this hits, why not hit up some of the spoiler sites, and look for all the quests that don't have objectives the allies will be after. There's bound to be plenty of those available for quick xp and cata items?
I mean, look at the mount hyjal area, the initial horde and alliance starting areas there are well spread out, you should be able to get a half level or more before even running into any alliance guys who aren't either lost or exploring.

Pretty sure he said HE was Alliance and his server was Horde dominant.

But anyway... what? Hyjal has exactly the same starting point for both Alliance and Horde, and they have to do the same quests. Vashj'ir, the starting points are not the same but the general questing areas are the same. There is a lot of space to not run in to the opposite faction though.

[allikat]

Ok, I may have got the flight points and initial starting point mixed up, I've not played the beta. But there are definitely major horde and ally quest hubs there, and they do seem to be at opposite ends of the map. A little poking around cata.wowhead.com will pay dividends here in finding quests and chains that will keep you away from the more highly travelled areas.
Plus you have to factor in the option to go "no life" on the weekend following release, a late night on the friday/saturday will reap many fine results in places that would normally be packed out with people.
The estimates are that people with the right information can go from t10 80, to 85 with around 48 hours of play. So if you can devote 4 hours a night during the week, plus 32 hours or so over the weekend, you'll hit 85 before the monday morning (the 13th) rolls around. Quicker if you have holiday booked over the release period. And I do recommend playing overnight if possible, most servers are pretty dead between midnight and 6am or so, leaving many respawns un-molested for you to quickly grab for yourself.

[Sabindeus]

Ok, I may have got the flight points and initial starting point mixed up, I've not played the beta. But there are definitely major horde and ally quest hubs there, and they do seem to be at opposite ends of the map. A little poking around cata.wowhead.com will pay dividends here in finding quests and chains that will keep you away from the more highly travelled areas.

Um. No, I don't think so... I don't see a single quest in Hyjal that is separated. The Wolf Spirit area is phased alliance/horde, but that's it. If you want separate alliance/horde quests go to Vashj'ir.

[Grannus]

If you went and tried to do quests/whatever at level 83, how did you fare in your gear? Since I don't think more than a couple tank pieces drop in BRC, were you finding yourself having trouble with Deepholm content because your gear was a little bit underleveled for the zone? Or was it not much of a big deal? (Or, did you not try it at all?) That's my main concern about chain dungeon-running.

Gear isn't much of a big deal until maybe 84 - I wasn't really replacing any of my 277 until Twilight Highlands.