Avenger's Shield vs. Sanctity Aura

My apologies. To get back on topic, the simplest solution would be to do as Fridmarr suggested and get a Ret Pally on board. I would still spec for Avengers Shield though because very occasionally things can get away from you and outrange your judgements very fast. I have specced for Sanctity as well, and while great, it just doesn't feel right to my playstyle at the start of the fight when getting threat in the first place determines whether your raid lives or dies.
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The best way to get more dps out of your dpsers is to raise the tanks threat ceiling. Maybe I'm in the minority but I do great TPS and my dpsers are chasing my ass all the way through the kill. The more threat you do, the less they have to hold back. There comes a point where your dps will catch up to your threat output towards the middle/end of SSC I've found.

That said, I only took SA at the time because I had not picked up many pieces of the great spell dmg gear that a paladin can get so I needed more threat (belt of the guardian, t5 pieces, nice boots for a heroic, etc). Now that I've picked up those pieces, I've dropped SA and haven't really noticed much change in my TPS and our dpsers can still go balls out as before. This really just depends on your raid group though. If your dps still has some catching up to do to reach your threat output, you really don't need SA. If you find you do need it, once you beef that spell dmg up a bit more, you'll find you can drop it safely with no downside.

With the 2.3 patch, any main tank in progression fights just cannot pass up the 10% stamina talent. And if you are going that far into prot, you may as well just pick up avenger's shield. As stated, its great for so many things and you wont feel like an rtard in 5-mans Face pulling ftl.
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What fights is there where AS is extremely useful ?

-lotheras the blind
-moroes ( if you want to AE tank )
and...uhm.. ?
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- Vashj for picking up Naga during phase 2.
- Al'ar for picking up Embers during phase 2.
- Kael'thas for picking up Phoenixes during phases 4 and 5.
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The #1 reason NOT to take sanctity aura in my opinion? You have to give up Devotion Aura. +1000 or so armor is nothing to sneeze at.

If you have another paladin in your group giving you devotion aura? Easy. Make them spec into the ret tree and give you sanctity! Win, Win for you.
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"With your shield or on it" - Spartan Code of Conduct

I used to love Sanctity Aura.

There's no real reason in preferring AS to SA. The problem is that you WILL want to take Combat Expertise. So you have either to lose Ardent Defender to get Sanctity aura, or fuck Sanctity aura and then there's no reason to not take AS.
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I have to say that I use Avenger's Shield all the time when tanking 5-mans and haven't made it into Kara or any other raid as a tank yet. Though my guild is making me the Belt of the Guardian as soon as the Blacksmith in the guild gets 1 more nether vortex.

I have around 250 sp damage before the belt and any tier pieces, i find that in 5-mans I am WAY ahead of the dps and I know from my experience as a healer the dps threat in a raid is on a very different curve. The front-load threat from AS, I have to admit, is extremely nice but the 10% bonus to overall threat will be nice too.

I suppose it would help if I actually gave you an instance of what I'd be faced with.

As it stands now, the dps rides the asses of the warriors in my guild, threat wise, during all boss fights. You constantly hear the raid leader calling people out to hold back, even if they have salv. Though in reality it could be that the dkp system they use needs to have a tank/healer clause thrown in, because truth be told, the damage your dps'ers do is entirely limited to how much threat the tank can generate, which comes from better gear? I'm assuming a lot I suppose.
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Also have to remember threat generation can be limtited or aided by the fight mechanics. Quick examples would be Hydross vs. FLK. Hydross rests threat everytime he changes form. DPS have to watch out as if the new tank misses a shield slam or whatever initial threat grab skill is used then threat will have a low lead in. FLK on the other hand, by the time your raids moves past the first add threat should be of little concern.

DPS should ride your tank's ass in threat. Its up to the tank to let them ride him as high up as possible. Our locks for instance could easily sustain 1.2k+ TPS with bursts close to 2k when they chain crit. When they are able to ride the tank at 1k TPS they are content atm. Its not max potential but you reach a point where that is just not possible all the time and being a good player simply means knowing when you have to hold back some.
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Lansky BE Paladin Mannoroth
http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Mannoroth&n=Lansky