Quesion 1: What is the most important stat for paladins?

Ans: Crit rating. Not agility, not AP, not bonus dmg, not armor pierce. Crit rating. Straight and simple.

Question 2: Why do I keep saying AP is useless for retridins?

Second most important? Strength. Why? Paladin damage dynamics are completely different from any other class in the game. Pally's are the only class who deal bonus spell damage on every mellee hit. This 'yellow' damage is not reflected in any way whatsoever by attack power.

The only way to increase the bonus damage is to increase your basic weapon damage, which is directly affected by strength. If you only boost AP, sure, you're whites will go up, but at the same rate your bonus will drop and your overall DPS will suffer.

Question 3: What else can I do?

My retribution build, on which I have worked for 3 years on retail, got shattered with the launch of TBC. Why? Coz I found a better build.

What you need, is each and every +haste rating item in the game. (Except rings, there are better rings with better stats and crit rating.)

Even with these pure haste equips, you suffer on crit rate, but you can easily cover that up by pumping crit rate gems. Your strength however increases substantially since most plate armors with haste are designed with extreme strength bonuses.

Now, get the one weapon which makes my day; Apolyon.

Your total crit maxes out at over 35%. Your damage goes through the roof. And your ASPD is quite entertaining.

Seal of Blood+Sanctity Aura+Dragonspire Trophy proc makes you invincible for 15 secs.

If you have any more doubts, just post a question here or whisper me in-game.

Macro's and Actions:

Now, retribution Paladins can actually be one of the highest DPS classes in the game, and the way to do this is to constantly switch weapons with seals and use judgement copiously.
How to dps:

Use this macro, for which you need any weapon, mace/sword/dagger which is spell oriented,

/startattack
/equip [weapon]
/cast Seal of Crusader
/cast Judgement

Now, what you need is two 2handed weapons. One with Crusader enchant, the other with Executioner. Why? To stack enchant buffs!

Your main seal for DPS will eventually shift from Seal of Vengeance to Seal of Blood when you get decent stamina equips. Once you get secure enough to use Seal of Blood and get two weapons, namely; Shivering Felspine (Crusader) and Cataclysms's Edge (Executioner).

What to do:

Firstly one macro:

/cast Crusader Strike
/startattack
/equip Shivering Felspine
/stopcast

Now:

#showtooltips Crusader Strike
/startattack
/equip Cataclysm's Edge
/stopcasting
/cast Seal of Blood
/castrandom Judement of Justice, Hammer of Wrath, Crusader Strike

This macro will basically cast either Judgement or Hammer or Crusader Strike, depending on which of the 3 are on cooldown. It's basically an all-in-one macro with which you can cast 3 skills on one spam button.

*For PvP add, Cleanse to those list of spells and you have a 1 button PvP macro ready.*

Take into consideration that the better weapon goes in the second macro, and preferably the faster weapon goes in the first macro, for better enchant proc.

During PvE and raiding, you will eventually run low on mana using these macro's. So, what you need is:

One very fast one handed weapon. Speed 1.40 or 1.50, Swiftsteel Bludgeon from BT is the best IMO.

What to do: Use this macro:

/cast Mana Tap
/startattack
/equip [weapon] [shield]
/cast Seal of Wisdom

Around 30 seconds of hitting is enough to recover the complete mana pool, so Judging this spell is a waste.

Once you get your mana back. Get back to DPSing.

Btw, remember to club together any usable trinkets with Righteous Fury, because those 20 seconds give you a window to potentially double ur DPS output, if you time it right.

P.S.> The PvP mechanics are slightly more complicated, with many more situational macro's involved. I'll make a guide for it later.