OPP (Over-Powered Pally)... Yah, You Know Me

A couple of words about paladin abilities and how that stacks up in the world of over-poweredness...

1. I have NEVER been in anything resembling a decent raid where a pally was anywhere near the top in dps.
2. In raids, pally healers are piss-poor raid healers, can't heal on the run for sh!t, and -- even when they're tank healing like they're basically limited to by design -- usually get out HPS'd by a marginally-geared druid.
3. They can tank.  I've heard they hold aggro well. Dunno overall how they stack up, but I've never heard anyone put any tank class above the rest. As a healer, I've always preferred to heal druid tanks... lots of health and they heal themselves a bit.
4. Pallies are good in PvP.  Yep.  Although -- in my experience (almost 13,000 honorable kills) -- rogues are the absolute worst to fight in PvP. But the real point is that different PvP character match-ups are harder than others. A rogue can take out a pally in no time. They can keep them stunned for pretty much the duration of the fight.  Bubble only works once.
5. Most of the people that bitch about pally's being OP have never had a level 80 pally or played them much in PvP. Before you say it, play it.

So... let's recap:  not great DPS, not great HPS in many cases, decent tanking, and near (if not at) the top in PvP. Hmmm... sounds pretty freakin balanced.

Even given all those arguments, probably the most important thing to keep in mind is this:  the people playing pallies didn't necessarily know they would be OP in PvP -- they picked them because the class is flexible like druids. Even if they did, they had no guarantee that Blizz would keep them that way. There's a big difference between saying a class is OP and saying that the players behind pallies are weak-ass bitches who run and hide in their bubble.