Yeah, I know Hellfire's going to be horrible when the expansion goes live, too, but I'm hoping that knowing a little bit of the quests ahead of time will let me get started there much quicker and then I can run off to Zangarmarsh.
I did a little more running around in Outland on my warlock, and found out that at least with my gear, I can grind a lot easier using my VW than I can my imp, so I don't need to respec. Anyway, Shattrath City is pretty cool and it has Khadgar. And as far as the two opposing factions in Shattrath - you get an easy quest after you're introduced where you just pick one side to declare allegiance to. When you do that you jump to Friendly with that side and Hostile with the other, but the town is a "Sanctuary" zone (as is the dark portal when you cross into Hellfire Peninsula) so you can't be attacked at all. I like that idea, it really gets rid of the annoying, retarded griefing in neutral towns that can happen in pvp zones/servers.
Also, although it's definitely meant for people 62+, there's stuff you can do in Zangarmarsh at 60, and on the whole the zone's definitely the second easiest in Outland. It's like the Barrens/Westfall/Loch Modan/Darkshore of Outland. And one thing I'm noticing with all the different factions is, at least for Thrallmar and Cenarion Expedition, they don't have stuff for everybody. They're a lot more focused on specific classes. CE has a lot of healer and feral druid gear, and Thrallmar has dps/caster gear, so instead of each class having good items from each different neutral rep, you just pick the ones that suit what you're going for. Although I guess LW completists will want to rep up enough to get both of their LW pattern sets.
Terokkar Forest seems like it's 63-64 minimum going by the mob levels I found there as I ran to Shattrath. Blade's Edge Mountains are 65+ (and arguably the coolest looking zone I've seen in the game), Netherstorm is 68+ (though I haven't been there, but it seems obvious since you have to go through the 65-66 level stuff in Blade's Edge just to get to it), Shadowmoon Valley is probably also 68+ (I'll find out when the beta server maintenance + most likely another patch is done). Oh, and Zul Aman, the troll instance in Eversong, is a raid. It's not open yet, but I can see the green portal. There's also an instance in Ghostlands that's not open yet, but it's meant to be around Deadmines level. And good (or maybe bad?) news on some other instances: Karazahn apparently needs a key, and maybe Atiesh will work (since it has a "Use: Teleports the caster and their group to Karazahn" function) too. Heroic (the official name of hard mode) dungeons seem to require a key as well, but the one for Hellfire Citadel just requires having I think honored or revered rep with Thrallmar, then you buy it from the quartermaster NPC. Black Citadel and Tempest Keep both require flying mounts to get in, so I'm willing to guess that most likely it will be impossible to summon people to those instances. I have no idea if the 6000g it takes to get an epic flying mount is easy to earn or not, because let's face it, most of the beta testers are ubernerds. But every person I've seen on a flying mount has had an epic one, and gold is definitely inflated in the Outland quests, so it's possible. Anyway, this means raids will be held off for a bit just because guilds will need 25 people with flying mounts to attempt them. Although, honestly, it only takes 900g for a regular flying mount, and that could probably be easy to earn by the time you hit 70.
I'm still hoping that the rep gains in the expansion AREN'T inflated, because quite frankly it makes rep go from a tedious grind to something manageable by the casual player. It's not like you instantly go from Neutral to Exalted, because I'm barely into Friendly with Thrallmar on my warlock and I'm close to 61 already (and I've done like, 8 quests in Outland at the most). Plus, it will flat out be a bitch to get up to honored with Silvermoon for existing horde 60s, and they have quite a few camps in Outland. Alliance, of course, get rep within their faction easy again, since Draenei start out friendly.
Oh, also, hunters, there's like 3 new breeds of pets I've seen, maybe even more than that. Dragonhawks are in the BE starting zone and there's probably some higher levels in Outland as well. They get their own Fire Breath racial skill. There's also Ravagers, which honestly look like the mother antlion from HL2. I think they get a short stun, but maybe not. And I saw someone with a Nether Ray (Steve Irwin jokes are going to fly out of this one) which is, well, an airborne stingray basically. I don't know if Ravagers/Nether Rays get their own racial skills, but the Dragonhawks do, plus they look cool. I'd say it's also likely that Rays/Dragonhawks learn Dive. Oh, also, I think you can tame snakes now, but it may have just been some crazy hunter who kept his snake from all the way back in like 1.0 when you could tame one of the ZF snakes. And for any hunter who isn't on the regular game's PTR or the expansion beta, BM is pretty sweet. My hunter's only 51, but I put all 42 points into BM and the haste talent near the end alone is awesome. It made my gryphonwing long bow go from 2.39 speed (after the quiver bonus) to 1.99, and my slow-ass turtle went from 2.0 speed to 1.67. So imagine that with a speedy pet like most BM hunters go for, and you could probably get a 1.2 speed pet down to 1.0 or .9 speed. It's a huge DPS boost since it doesn't change the listed damage on your weapon any, and I don't think it affects RAP either. Add in improved AotH and you could easily turn some of the 3.0 bows/guns/whatever into 1.5 speed attacks.
Anyway, point is a lot of the new beast mobs in the expansion seem to be tameable, so more pet options.