One nice thing for Hunters in Dire Maul is that there's actually a lot of mail stuff with +crit on it in there. I've seen 2 pieces myself already. Hunters in guild are all doing dances of joy about not having to wear leather to get +crit any more.
BTW, the west and the north instances are the same thing. They link up, actually. Go in the north entrance, in that first pit right inside, there's a locked door leading to a tunnel that goes to the Aethenium, which is where you get eventually going from the west door, past the named Tree guy, and around through the prison room.
As for my opinion on paladin changes, well, there haven't been any changes such that I have noticed yet. I'm looking forward to our MC run Saturday, though, being able to DI anyone in the raid will make life much simpler for being able to prevent complete wipeouts, even if no one has Soulstone up. Being able to give reduce aggro buff to people outside my group will be nice too.
-Arlos