History Lesson

Taking a trek back in time, some ridiculous paladin "fixes", nerfs, bugs, and stuff that just doesnt make any sense.

Seal of the Crusader - This one is huge. SoTC used to be the damage seal, provided great baseline physical damage to any paladin, and only did as much overall dps as Windfury with NO burst whatsoever. It was then nerfed to just forcibly change your weapon speed so your autoattack dps remained the same. The recent SoTC/CS ptr change is simply doubly logged as a fix to this change, all that occurs now is SoTC adds 40% CS damage to make up for the 40% swing speed reduction(fuzzy math but I'm too lazy to work the numbers). Why shamans and blood elf paladins have better baseline melee dps than "melee hybrid" alliance paladins, I have no clue. For all the naysayers:

10 swings pre nerf-
Windfury Weapon - 20% chance for 2 attacks at additional AP = 14 attacks every 10 swings. 4 of those have additional AP
SoTC - IIRC 40% more attacks at additional AP = 14 attacks every 10 "swing timers". Each swing has additional AP.

So less burst for slightly more sustained DPS. This seemed balanced to me. Both moves were baseline, heck SoTC was purgeable and that was a huge problem in paladin vs shaman fights. Being different, but having the same overall effect was fine with me. Then SoTC got nerfed and paladin dps went to the pisser.

Spell Critical/Illumination - Pre BC it was way too hard to stack spell crit, and itemization for paladins was horrendous(and still is, sometimes). When TBC hit and spell crit was being stacked everywhere, and illumination became too strong with a shadow priest. Solution? Nerf illumination. Unfortunately our PVP sets didnt get re-itemized with this nerf and continue to have ZERO mp/5.

BoP+Judgement - Since judgements induce autoattack, you cannot judge while bop'd. This is a rather silly change and they say its not fixable. Not fixable? Are you kidding me?

CC+Judgement - For a while now, casting a judgement at the same time as eating a CC has resulted in a lost seal+mana, but no judgement effect.

BoS+BoF Nerf - I was fine with the BoF nerf, but the BoS one was ridiculous. With paladins still having no hot/instant heal worth a damn, BoS was one of our only ways to mitigate dot damage on our teammates while being CC'd. Against a mage BoS still required significant blessing swapping. You could freedom to remove a root(cleanse versus winterschill... yeah good luck), but would have to apply bosac immediately, leaving your teammate open to snares once more. With the changes to allow all buffs to be seen by enemies, the BoS nerf needs to be undone. Its very easy to tell who its on, and who you can snare at will.

Mass Dispel - Again, Paladins are no longer the PvP healing juggernauts they once were. I dont think this one even needs an explanation.

Aura Removal - Cyclone used to cancel auras permanently and it was working as intended. Are you kidding me? This one eventually got reverted but it sure took a while.

Reckoning Bombs - The infinite charge reckoning bomb was admittedly broken, but the current incarnation is relatively useless outside of pve server aoe farming. Single target threat typically isnt a large issue for paladin tanks, and paladin kiteability makes the current reckoning very useless in a pvp situation. Being able to save up damage while kited was a key benefit of this talent, much like a warrior that gains rage from second wind/damage while kited. When he arrives at the target and gets his few seconds of damage in, those seconds are quite lethal(HS/MS/WW). This talent may see more use in WotLK if the higher ret talents prove useless. A reckoning/CS/sacred duty build would be great for arenas.

Divine Purpose - This talent needs a rework, as crit damage reduction is capped at 25%. It was a decent bandaid when paladin ret gear had no resilience but now this talent needs to be in line with the druid and priest talents that were changed due to the reduction cap. Changing it to say, an on crit buff that increases damage dealt by 5%, and damage taken by -5%, stackable to 3 would be fine. Paladins suffer greatly under focus fire, and have very few escape moves. Alternatively, this talent could be the new reckoning, perhaps offering 5% damage mitigation, stackable to 3. On swing, uses all charges for extra attacks. This would allow a focused paladin to choose between defense or offense, with consequences in each. Its current incarnation leaves much to be desired, as crit damage reduction is not nearly as valuable as the mana burn/dot reduction that I'm fairly certain this talent does not provide.

Seal of Command - Should not be PPM, nuff said really. Weapon speed drastically affects SoC performance, as slower weapons not only increase the proc rate, but increase proc damage as well.

This list is not comprehensive, but its a good outline of the crap this class has been through.