Well being a former BS myself, I must say I agree that is suck bigtime.

I have choosen enchanting instead and keeping my mining. I keep gathering ore to sell at AH and the enchanting allows me to disenchant any gear i pick up when farming the lower instances.

If I need some special armour or weapon i ask a BS to craft it for me. Normally that dosen't cost me much since I ask a guildie

Dead end to say the least. ive gotten my BS to 350 on my warrior alt, took sword smithing b4 BC, and when i finally get the skill up to make that first epic, i look at the Fireguard and realize it's junk for a tank!!! sure the stam and agi are nice, but there is no def reting, shield block or anything that would make me want to spend the time to farm mats for when a simple blue will be a much better weapon for mitigation.
  WTH!?!?!

Umm yah its a pvp weapon im gatherin mats for it cause its uber for a ret paly nice hit rating it has and the proc is gonna be soo awesome. ATM im using Legionfoe and i have 26% crit rating and i havent been 70 too long just done alot of pvp which doesnt mean ur ready for pve unless you dont catch much agro at all in roics. This sword is gonna pwn the gnomes