Druids and Pugs, revisited

Well, another raid week has come and gone without me stepping foot in Ulduar, except this week it was work and parenting conflicts that kept me out. I've done a little bit of pugging on the druid this week, and got some good upgrades out of Naxx. I'm still fooling with my spell rotation a bit, and realized that I had part of it backwards.
Pugs are funny entities. On my server, a lot of the Naxx pugs, and even some Ulduar 10 pugs, are being run by casual guilds. This isn't a bad thing in and of itself, but it does lead to some sloppy and inefficient raid behavior. I have some thoughts for anyone who wants to pug:

• If you are the raid leader, checking gear scores on alts is a waste of time. Especially if the person is in a guild that has killed Yogg-Saron in heroic, they probably know what they're doing and their main could kick your ass.
• Along with that, members of top raiding guilds are generally safe invites. They generally will respect others (as long as they aren't complete idiots who can't take constructive criticism), won't ninja-afk, and will roll only on upgrades. Plus, officers and members of raiding guilds have an image to maintain, so they take complaints about ninjas seriously (Boom and Dev, correct me if I'm wrong on this pl0x).
• If you want to be the raid leader, step up and lead, or people will walk all over you and you will have a train wreck on your hands. I don't raid lead anymore because I have so many friends that do it better, I make them leader even if I start invites.
• Don't post the damage meter in raid after every boss fight. Better yet, don't post it at all. If someone is struggling, putting him or her down won't help, and it's awfully annoying.
• Run a boss mod, either Deadly Boss Mods or BigWigs. I don't care how bad your computer is, unless you have amazing reflexes, you need the warnings. If you computer can't support it, you have no business raiding.
• If you need to go afk, don't do it right before a boss kill. That wastes everyone's time, and can kill a pug. Also, make sure you let the raid leader know, and apologize to everyone.
• Fly to the instance. If you are in the old world and your hearth is down, you may respectfully ask for a summon while apologizing for the inconvenience. And if someone gets there first and summons you before you start flying, say thank you.
• Remember your manners. The players I truly respect and admire in this game are the ones that are polite as well as skilled. I look very closely at how people treat me.
• Only roll on loot that you really need, and if you are getting a lot of loot, it's time to stop rolling.

Happy raiding!