I am in the beta. I admit it. I enjoy discovering new things although I have to repeat that experience again when BC officially ships.
Jewelcrafting is the big hype on the beta servers as everyone wants to try out the new ability. I won't reskill simply because enough of my raid will do so and can provide me with the wonderful things Jewelcrafting is going to do for us. Jewelcrafters will make good money offering their services.
One misunderstanding which doesn't quite have been cleared: you can socked your items YOURSELF as long as you have access to the jewels. Resocket them will destroy the jewel and you need a new one. In the beta there is a NPC which sells basic jewels but my guess is that he will disappear for the BC launch. He is there simply to test out the socketable items.
As jewelcrafters need a lot of basic resources the prices of these items will skyrocket for a while. Imagine: 12.000 accounts average per server will create demand for at least 1000 jewelcrafters out there. So if you need 100+ copper bars to skill the first few points thats 100.000 bars right there per server. They need a lot more basic resources to skill even further. Funny things like gems and perls, even Troll flasks will be needed.
I am buying my auction house empty of those things if the price is right and stockpile them. I am not ashamed that I will make considerable money with my knowledge I gained through participation in the beta. You can do so as well. Simply browse the recipes posted on the many sites like http://thottbot.com or http://bcspy.bc.funpic.de. Browsing http://wowinsider.com also helps.
So login and buy those things even if you consider NOT skilling jewelcrafting.
Metal bars will be in hot demand for a long time. Not only for jewelcrafting. Armor Smiths or Weaponsmiths can create items now which are far superior to the old ones. And they need tons of stuff for those. Good news for miners.
In other words: its good to read all those sites with news about the beta to anticipate the demands of the new recipes and make business with them. All perfectly legel to finance your new flying mount you are going to need at level 70.
