Overall, my impression is positive. The mage class, for example, received a much-needed workover. By anyone's standards, mages were somewhat lackluster in the Burning Crusade -- they went from kings of ranged dps and battlegrounds in Vanilla WoW, to sub-par raid dps and acceptable pvpers, depending on spec. The changes promised to put the "cannon" back in "glass cannon," and so far I think it has worked out great. Some of the juicier changes are as follows:
Arcane
Arcane is different from the other two mage trees -- always was, and still is. It doesn't play like a fire or frost mage. You have a rotation, but it's not static, you have better burst and poorer mana control, and it is the only spec where your dps is not determined by cast time and crits, but by your mana pool. It's basically just a fun spec to play, and new Arcane is incredibly powerful and versatile -- it's fast, powerful, highly mobile, flexible, and best of all, PVP-viable.
Magic Absorption gives you 80 resistance to all magic schools at level 80. The blood elf racial gives you another 3% to all schools. Focus Magic is a nice fire-and-forget -- cast it on a holy paladin, elemental shaman, boomkin, or another mage, and reap the benefit for another half hour. Prismatic Cloak gives you an instant Invisibility, and Arcane Floes allows you to use it every 2 minutes. Torment the Weak is a great incentive to actually pick up Slow for PVP, and even PVE. By the way, Slow now also works on cast time, which makes it far more useful than it ever was. This far down in the tree, everything is golden: Missile Barrage is a huge dps boost when it procs (and since it procs on Arcane Barrage and Arcane Missiles, it procs a lot), Netherwind Presence gives a flat haste increase, which is always useful, and Arcane Barrage is probably the best new mage spell, ever. It almost, but not quite, makes up for the 200% mana nerf on Arcane Blast, which renders the spell almost completely useless in PVE.
I haven't tried it in battlegrounds yet, but that is where I imagine this tree will really shine. In raids, with a rotation of ABa-AM (with more AM if MB procs), I find the damage is too spiky to be consistent dps, but maybe I just need more practice. I definitely see potential here.
Fire
My guess is that the fire tree will be utilized more to provide synergy with Frostfire bolt later on. Right now, the fire tree comes up short as a standalone tree, unlike the other two trees, and it doesn't show the flexibility of Arcane or Frost. The AOEs are nice, but some mages report that Blizzard is still out-dpsing all the AOEs in the Fire tree. Disappointing, to say the least. Fire is still a strong raid dps spec and Frostfire/Deep Fire may become the raid spec of choice at level 80. It is too early to tell.
Not much has changed with the fire playstyle, except that every now and then you get a free Pyroblast. Blast Wave now has a knockback, which is nice for the few PVP fire mages out there, and may be useful if you are AOEing in PVE and need to get some things off you really quickly. Firestarter seems nice, but I can't really think of too many situations in which I'd actually use Flamestrike even if it was instant. Hot Streak will be a nice dps boost, but Living Bomb is a resounding disappointment for PVE. It's lackluster in comparison to Seed of Corruption, a trainable spell, and simply doesn't seem worth the extra point. Still, don't discount the fire tree at level 80. I'm a Pyromaniac at heart, so I hope to see this tree made fun again later.
Frost
Frost is sitting pretty right now, no question about it. I was never interested in it before, mostly because I like the chaos of just blowing things up and frost always seemed more about control and flying under the radar. But now the frost tree is a thing of beauty. It's still great for PVP, with a ton of survivability, and the addition of some new goodies makes it the best PVE dps spec. Imbalanced? Maybe -- but again, the addition of Frostfire bolt may yet change everything.
You'll still want Icy Veins and Elemental Precision, but now you'll also want Shatter for PVE because of a nice little talent called Fingers of Frost. Shattered Barrier is nice too, because the frost nova it generates is off the GCD, giving you an increased chance of living and being able to step back and throw off a quick Ice Lance combo. The mana regen from Improved Water Elemental is a little subpar (the days of heady mana regen from 1.2k spelldamage shadow priests are, alas, at an end) but it is party-wide-- and the elemental lasts 5 seconds longer. Everything dies so quickly now that on boss fights I can pop the elemental and Icy Veins, Cold Snap, then do it again immediately thereafter for maximum dps. Then, of course, there's Brain Freeze, which is also a nice dps boost. Deep Freeze is still rather useless in PVE and seems to exist solely to allow mages to kill resto druids.
In Review
I've never been one to take the alleged accusations of imbalance too seriously. Just because SK Gaming doesn't want to bring mages to Sunwell, it doesn't mean your guild won't bring you. In fact, unless you happen to be in the top 5% of guilds who exist solely to clinch world firsts and min-max, chances are good that your guild will bring their best and most loyal players along, without worrying too much about which class is the most optimal. And half of the WoW player base is terrible anyway; you can do better than those people in your sleep. As for the other half, you should be able to close the gap with skill and dedication. In fact, when a class or spec is deemed lacking is when I become most motivated to play it, because when I top damage meters, it will be solely because of skill, and not because of class mechanics.
Well, min-maxing will still go on, but I predict in a somewhat dampened form. In any case, I think mages are well poised to benefit greatly from all the new changes, and I am looking forward to leveling mine first when the Lich King rolls out. I will see Dalaran a full two levels ahead of everyone else. Bet you wish I would port you, hmm?
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