Skill not matching Gear

A person's skill not matching his gear is something that happens alot.. nowadays we got loads of welfare epics and people just playing cards in the AV caves can walk around in a full purple set. I'm always scared when ending up in a pug with someone with mostly pvp gear as it is nowhere a guarantee that this person can actually play his class and/or can be part of a team.
When someone in T5 gear is in your party you got quite a better chance with that but still in a big raid a couple of less performing people can easily hitch a ride.

But it can be the other way around aswell... you know those people who can play about any class? Whichever toon he touches, he/she is able to squeeze most out of it or at least more then most average people can. A person like this often has quite a few alts and is a welcome addiction to any party on whatever toon he has. We have couple of people like this in our guild and i like to think i'm one of those people aswell, or at least i try to be which is a good step in the right direction.
When those people just turned 70 and start running instances with friends/guildmates it's often that their skill doesn't match their gear in an opposite way as my earlier example. They know the tactics by heart, know what not just they but what other teammembers are supposed to do (as they likely seen the fight from at least one other point of view then their current) and are enthousiastic playing that toon aswell, something main's might even lack.
Their gear however might not be up to the challenge yet and might not contribute as much as they would like.

I brought my alt Warlock to SSC this week... i knew i was undergeared for sure but as they were lacking people i still offered my services as it was better as nothing. Now this guild i was with (my Warlocks new home if they decide to let her stay) had done Lurker and Hydross before but that night they were shorthanded, bringing not just me but other "freshmen" allong aswell.
While i executed the fight perfectly (in my pov) as i had done it quite a few times before on my Hunter, i felt was lacking. I tried to put out as many dps as i was possible, experimented with dotrotations, dotted multible targets and made sure i was flasked and oiled... but still my dps didn't get close to many of the others. Understandeable ofcourse as my gear is still lacking and i should actually be clearing Karazhan for upgrades.
I didn't get higher then 6th position on fights, often lower even and in the end we didn't manage to kill Lurker that night as too many people didn't pot up and knew the tactics.. leaving us shorthanded halfway during the fight because we lost too many people.
However it boosted my wish to get geared up even more so i can be more of an asset in raids then i currently am.

In this case i bare a load of information in my head with as result my Warlock could do any boss between Huntsman and Illidan. Skillwise i'm still learning but i've beaten full epic Warlocks on the meters more then once while still keeping eye on the fight and pitching in when things go wrong.
I'm lacking gear, not knowledge and perhaps even skill.
The weird thing is i even got an offer to join a raiding guild that does Black Temple and is at Illidan at the moment, purely because i know all the fights in there. The only problem was my gear so on short notice i wouldn't be much of a help so i told them that it wasn't a good idea because of that gear.

So i'm gonna run Heroics, attend to Karazhan raids, craft myself items, etc... to get my little lock in shape and actually contribute to my new guilds raids.
Let's see if i can get skill and gear on par.