And there i thought i was smart

I've been running instances with my low level shammy for a couple of weeks now (altho is 60 still low?) and i've been able to compare my dps to other players for a bit now. Without bragging i can say i managed to outdps most other players quite easily.. i didn't pot and even offhealed now and then if needed but i was first on the meters most of the time (apart from a few level 70 players who came along :P ).
Now i'm quite a serious player... constantly thinking about how to maximize my character or playstyle, in my shaman's case: her dps. (yep it's a girly.. damn in HAWT)

What i never believed in (and still don't do) is plainly copying other peoples gear, builds, playstyle.. you name it. Copying won't maximise your potential!
You need to figure out for yourself how you can improve and if you check out other peoples theories, don't just accept it... understand it.
Figuring out how things work might not always be fun but the result can be quite alot, in the end it's worth it imo.

One of the things i can't figure out for my shammy is the weapon buffs you can cast. Windfury is thé best buff to cast on Main hand but what about Offhand? To not bore you with details you offhand weapon does 50% of the damage of a mainhand weapon, windfury gives your weapon a chance to hit for twice the weapondamage + extra attackpower. Now comes the tricky part: when it procs it starts a hidden cooldown in which no new proc can occur on both MH as OH. So when my OH procs (lower damage) my MH can't proc either for a bit. And what prevents my OH to proc again after that and keep the MH locked out? I've been trying WF on both weapons aswell as WF on MH and Flametongue on the OH which adds firedamage and makes sure only my MH can use the WF buff.
Confused? Well i am.
My current theory is that i need a as slow as possible OH before Windfury on it gets worth it... as long as i got this fast OH i'm using the flametongue.

But there is more smartness required, something that can have major effect on your usefullness is your talentbuild... your spec so to say.
A warrior who wants to be a tank will be limited in his capability if he skips the extra threat talents, a warrior who wants to dps must certainly not skip on the extra crit talents. Sounds simply enough right? Well it's not always this obvious i'm afraid.
There are talents which are secretly alot better then you would say at first and there are bad talents which you need to take to get to the next tier to get to the good stuff.

Now you can skip the next bit if you want if you don't want to see me discuss my little shaman, i'll try to keep things obvious for non-shamans ofcourse.
Anyway i went Enhancement which is the melee shaman who uses shocks for some extra magic damage. The talents in the enhancement tree have been well spend imo, been avoiding the crap talents (or at least those with limited value). But now i have some to spend in either elemental or restoration.
Restoration is healing, Elemental is casting... since i use shock Elemental seems the most valid choice.
So i've planned to make my build like this: http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=hE0zL0bZxV0zE0sAuqo
Now today i followed my own advice and checked out the Elitist Jerks posts on Enhancement shammies.
I quickly found this:

One of the more prevalent suggestions is that Enhance Shaman should 'optimize' their DPS by speccing into Elemental for a 5 second shock cooldown, 5% increased shock damage, and of course the Elemental Devastation Talent.
Bad idea.

Say what? extra shockdamage, faster shocks, less mana for shocks, chance on even more shockdiscounts and more meleecrit. Doesn't seem like such a bad deal imo.
Instead they advised to take a talent in the Restoration tree which i didn't spot before, 3% extra hit for melee and spells. They showed how minor dps upgrade the spells in Elemental would actually be which seem to make sense, i'm still gonna take another look at this but the theory about it seems valid.
The bad part is i need to some "crappy" talents to get to that talent, healing talents and/or cheaper totems which might not be not worth the points.. certainly no the healing ones as a dps shaman.
This would result in a talentbuild somewhat like this, gonna try it out once i actually have enough points to reach that extra hit talent.

My point, if there was one to start with, is that you can always learn more about your toon...
A different playstyle (different spellrotations for example) or a different build can be found through theorycrafting, debating and testing which will show its result. Don't accept your way as the best and you can always improve.