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While I'm leveling up my toons and their professions, I'm beginning to formulate opinions on good class/profession combinations.  In particular, I'm pondering how a person, who primarily solos and enjoys playing most of the classes in the game, can arrange things such that each toon can help out the other toons. Here's a possible list to consider when starting out:

• Warrior/Paladin - Blacksmith/Mining
• Rogue/Hunter/Shaman - Skinning/Leatherworking
• Druid - Herbalism/Inscription, Skinning/Leatherworking
  
• Death Knight - Blacksmith/Jewelrycrafting
• Warlock/Mage/Priest - Herbalism/Alchemy or Tailoring/Enchanting

Now, this isn't to say this list is perfect. But there's some rationale behind a few of the choices:

• Warrior/Paladin - Mining helps with tanking since you can gain extra stamina. Blacksmith is good for creating armor and weapons early on and later in the game.
• Hunter/Shaman - Early on, making your own armor proves to excel when compared to the first 30 levels (or so) of quest rewards. Then in the end game, once again crafting your own armor can certainly benefit if you don't go on raids.
• Druid - Taurens work very well with Herbalism and I find Druid herbalists to potentially be the best gatherers, especially when they acquire instant flight form. If you choose a druid as your first class, you might also consider the skinning/leatherworking combo just to create some decent armor early on in the game as well as armor patches.
• Death Knight - In my case, I was fortunate to already have a high level character on a different server. So when I came aboard a new server, one of the first classes I created was a Death Knight. If you decide not to transfer your characters, like I did, creating a death to earn some quick gold as a gatherer (I find mining to be the best btw), then the Death Knight can boost your coffers up quickly until your lower level toons can catch up. For instance, my paladin was able to level his blacksmithing skills fast as a result of having my Death Knight ride around places like Durotar and Hillsbrad Foothills in initially gathering up mining nodes. This was important because my paladin at that point in time was too low level and might draw aggro. Not to mention the Death Knight starts off at level 58 practically and thus has a fast mount from the start. I added Jewelrycrafting to the Death Knight's list because I find it to be one of the harder skills to level up at the start. However, it's easy for the Death Knight to gather mining materials. So right off the bat, you can hit most lower level areas and push your mining and jewelrycrafting skills up simultaneously. On top of that, even in slightly higher level spots like Un'Goro Crater or the Felwood, you're still doing enough damage that no monster will pose a threat.
• Warlock/Mage/Priest - Tailoring is an easy choice potentially for these classes because of their armor limitations. Also, enchanting forms a nice combination when taken with tailoring. If you don't go that route, Herbalism and Alchemy prove to be decent alternatives as you can gather up herbs while focusing on leveling your alchemy.

You may say that I left out engineering. Actually, my thoughts on this list was on the condition that you're started out or starting on a new server. Second, these aren't the exact choices I made with my guys. For instance, I gave my shaman tailoring and enchanting because I didn't want to play a cloth wearer from the start but badly needed a tailor for creating bags (still working on that aspect). In addition, once you manage to establish your toons at level 85 or so, you can easily eliminate redundant gathering skills. In the long haul, you only need three main gatherers.

For myself, I wanted to make my druid an herbalists/miner or skinner due to her flight form. But I found out that mining does transform her from her flight form. So I lose a tiny bit of advantage. And there's no point in removing her inscription skill after all the effort I put into it (like those daily minor inscriptions). So I plan to continue having her pursue both skills and probably will keep her as the primary herbalism gatherer in my group.

However, for my hunter, if I manage to level her (or transfer my old hunter over, who does have a high leatherworking skill), I would eventually ditch her skinning for engineering. Ah, that's where engineering comes in. I find that engineering is probably the hunter's best second skill because of how they can craft various ranged weapons. Similarly, with my paladin, I would eventually like to get rid of mining after I get my Death Knight to 85 and max out his mining. I'm considering giving my Paladin enchanting because I often solo many instances and receive a large number of greens or BOP blues that I end up vendoring. A better option would simply be to disenchant those and place them on the auction house.

The real question eventually comes down to whom you want to determine as your primary toons that you want to "play with." For instance, I feel that my Paladin is a good main character so I prefer to have someone else gather. Instead, the extra skill slot can go to another crafting skill like enchanting. Besides disenchanting items for money, the enchanting skill would be good for some of the higher level self-enchants.

Anyway, this is just some brief thoughts. Perhaps other people have other suggestions to optimizing this list.