Early 60s Gear

Dear Honor’s Hammer:

Hello! I have a 61 Paladin who I’m leveling with the goal of main-tanking for my casual guild when he hits 70. As I work my way through the various quest chains in Hellfire Peninsula, I’m finding it difficult to choose my quest rewards. Potentially, nearly any item I pick up will help my Paladin—Strength lets me hit harder and block better, spelldamage gear will help me maximize my spells and hold aggro in instances, and Stamina and Intellect will both keep me up longer. All of the stats seem desirable (well, except Spirit), and I don’t know which drops to roll on or which quest rewards to pick. Do you think you could come up with an ordered list of preferred stats for the leveling Paladin? I’m earning most of my XP by either AoE-grinding my way through quests or tanking for 5-mans. Thanks for any assistance you can provide!

Svyetlii
In most cases what you want to do with quests is take the plate rewards. Any plate with spell damage, intellect or mana per 5 is made for Paladins. (Not nessessarily well made, though). You will likely use it in either a Tanking, Healing or DPS set.
Roll on the spell damage mace that the beholder looking boss in Blood Furance drops. Be sure you go for the Spellfire Longsword from the first boss in Slave Pens.
If you are the only plate wearer in a 5 man, roll on all the plate that drops.
If you have a Warrior with you (and you are tanking) pass on any clear melee DPS plate (it will have Strength, and Agility). Also, if you are tanking, all the Healing Plate belongs to that wonderful Holy Paladin keeping your sorry dwarf butt alive.
Strength is a pretty useless stat for a Tankadin once you hit Outland, but where you are at much of the tanking gear you will find will have some strength on it.
Be on the lookout for green "Of The Crusade" and "Of the Champion". I wore a green "Of the Crusade" belt for the longest time when I leveling up.
The first thing you want to do is go to MainTankadin and check out the gear section. 99% of the discussions are focused on "end game" gear. The thread you want is Pre-raid Tanking: Theories, Goals and the Gear to Get There. (Here, I"ll link it for you, since I'm a helpful dwarf).
"Tankadins are looking for three things in their gear: Threat, Stamina and Mitigation. This is the same for any tank, but Paladins do it in very different ways."
I refered to that article constantly as I was leveling up. You might also want to check out my post on Tankadin Weapons available from quests. http://honorscode.blogspot.com/2007/12/questable-tankadin-weapons.html

There are a couple of important quest reward items you should look at getting from Hellfire.

Regal Protectorate

Gilded Crimson Breastplate

Helm of Infinite Visions

Skyfire Greaves

Golden Cenarion Greaves

Charm of Alacrity

The Regal Protectorate and the Gilded Crimson Breastplate will last you a long time. In fact I wore Regal on my first trip into Karazhan, and I pulled it out again when I needed a defense trinket for Hydross. I still use the Gilded Crimson Breastplate in my healing set.