If You Were a Casual Gamer...

[Skandranon]

It's mostly accepted that playing Alliance is basically playing "easy mode", and that playing a Paladin is basically playing with cheats enabled.  I've played one to 18, and unless you do something supremely stupid (which a "casual" gamer might do, of course), it's nigh impossible to die in PvE combat.  If you get in over your head, bubble and run, or bubble and heal.  You have a ranged stun, you can wear the heaviest armors (mail up to 40 and plate past 40), you can use almost all weapons (almost all melee weapons), and you get a free mount at Level 40 and a reduced-cost mount at Level 60.  Add Engineering to the mix for ranged attack options (not counting Holy Shock), and you can't lose.  Pallies can play backup healer in parties, and their heals don't cause much (if any) aggro, so the player wouldn't even need to worry about aggro management.
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I agree. No class owns the first 40 levels of the game like the Paladin does. During this period of time, you can basically ignore the (elite) tag on quests; elite just means that it takes more time. Paladins also are very uncomplicated to play, as well. Auras require no attention, and combat consists mainly of activating a seal and waiting for the other guy to die. You can seal, judge, seal, but that's about it. When your health gets low, heal.

Of course, after level 40 paladin damage tails off rapidly and there's no doubt that the class is incredibly gimped in PvP and endgame play. But we're talking casual players, here.

Which is one other thing. I am making this recommendation from the perspective of a non-casual player, which can affect my viewpoint in ways that I can't determine. Tris on Stormrage was having a lot of issues playing his paladin in the early game, and my complete inability to understand his problems frustrated me a lot. There may be issues with playing an early-game paladin that none of us can comprehend, simply because we aren't casual players. Just something to keep in mind.