I think I broke it

Now for a while I have felt that I have reached a stagnant point in terms of gear progression and for me that means that I am not improving. My tanking gear has always been fully enchanted and gemmed for optimal tanking stats and I have one of the best threat generation amongst the tanks that I know, but the experience against Void Reaver where the off tanks were unable to build enough threat leaving me to single tank him made me realize that a bit more threat generation would have gone a long way to prevent me the repair bill. But currently my gear is at the most optimal for my current progression level. Why...ok let me break it down

1) Head : Stag Helm of Malrone: Sure its not the best tanking headpiece but it means I have the 2-set bonus from Tier 4 which most would recall is frikkin awesome.
2) Neck: Necklace of the Juggernaut: This BoJ reward neck piece is possibly one of the best barring the ones which drop in end T5-T6 raids.
3) Shoulders: Gladiator's Dragonhide Spaulders: Now this is necessary for me because I use Resilience to hit my uncrittability mark and 2 piece bonus means another +35 resilience so irreplacable except with S2 or S3 pieces.
4) Back: Gilded Thorium Cloak: Definitely one of the best in game cloaks for druids with the exception of the BoJ cloak.
5) Chest: Vengeful Gladiator's Dragonhide Tunic: The 2nd piece of pvp gear for my 2-pc bonus. Its in many ways comparable to the Malrone's chestpiece (T4) and in some ways better with the huge amount of stamina on it.
6) Bracers: Band of the swift paw: Definitely one of the best in game with the exception of T6
7) Belt: Waistguard of the Great beast: Now the reason I prefer this belt to the more oft used Belt of Natural power is its relative ease of obtaining it coupled with the hit rating which is sorely missing on bear tanking gear. I also prefer the added agility on it.
8) Leggings: Tameless Breeches: This is one fantastic pair of leggings and can only be outclassed by stuff that drops in Sunwell.
9) Boots: Vindicator's Dragonhide Boots: Fairly balanced stats and with the resilience it gives me the option of losing some defence in case of need.
10) Rings and Trinkets: I currently have the 2 best rings in-game for a druid tank along with 2 of the best trinkets (arguably) making them both irreplacable.

So that leaves me at an artificial ceiling in terms of improvements unless I finally succumb to using macros in lieu of click tanking. Now I like to have a comfortable time tanking without any fear of losing threat to those pesky locks. However my current guild has a couple of extremely well geared locks and by extremely I mean the kind that generate threat in the 900-1100 tps range kinda locks and thats with Salvation. Now under ideal conditions I can put upwards of 1300-1400 tps but as we know conditions arent always ideal and I have had times when the threat of the locks has come close to the point that I have had to put my taunt button ready in case the locks push above me so that I can gain snap aggro.

Now the locks also do this to toy with me since I kinda pride in my threat generation and as a result am always the first dps target tank because of it. So seeing that I am at a ceiling while the dps keeps getting geared had me worried and finally forcing me into doing the thing I hate most....theorycrafting. I finally downloaded Rawr and did some testing with a possible change in spec and last night blew a 110 BoJ and will possibly blow some more for epic gems.

So what did I buy:
1) Cloak: Slikk's Cloak of Placation: More dodge, more stamina (slightly less armor) for increased survivability which my following changes will need.
2) Gloves: Handwraps of the aggressor: These gloves not only have higher stamina but also more agility, strength and haste, making it a higher dps pair of gloves. The haste is a double edged sword for a tank, since it increases the attack speed and as a result it also increases the number of parries and as a result more attacks in the same time period and more incoming damage. Be sure that your healers are capable of handling this change, even though its a minor change but I already have haste on my leggings so this is slowly adding up.

But now I have broken the coveted 2pcT4 bonus making the continued use of the head gear only a waste. So how did I correct that change. I equipped the Grimgrin faceguard. Now this is a questionable tanking helm for a druid, it has a lot of agility and stamina so increases survivability but at a loss of some serious armor. It also has a fairly serious dose of AP and hit making it even more of a threat generator.

So after getting these I socketed them with Solid Stars of Elune for all, and enchanted them exactly the same way they were before. So where do I stand with these changes (in dire bear form unbuffed):
Stamina: 18.7k (gained around 1k HP)
Armor: 30.5k (lost 1k armor)
Dodge: 39+ (gained 2% dodge)
Hit: 54 (gained 24)

and a bit more of stats in other places. RAWR showed that my overall threat generation is up and so is my threat ceiling in an unlimited rage situation. Now to test out how these changes work out and report them in the future to see whether breaking the set bonus was any good.

Until then adios.