Old epic gear with bonus healing will be converted to the new spellpower stat.

Example: http://wotlk.wowhead.com/?item=21875

To add to what the previous commenter said. Your +heal stat on your character sheet will be lower but your heals will be hitting for roughly the same amount that they are now on the live server. There have even been reports of your heals hitting harder.

i second this question

I'm fairly certain that your epic healing gear will be good for leveling, since you'll get the same +damage stat budget from +healing, so if you have sunwell healing items, you'd get sunwell level +Damage out of them, you just will lack a bit of +hit and possibly +Crit depending on your class

If it works the way that makes sense it is like the auto-crit talents, but with a twist.

Pop it and you get +60% crit for your heals.
The moment a crit hits, you now have +40% crit.
Another, +20% crit.
Once again, you no longer have a boost to your crit chance.

It is in effect until it runs out or you crit enough to hit 0% increase, in which case it did it's thing.

I don't think it's that great. An auto-crit is a sure thing, you macro that to a fast heal and you have a panic button. This has the potential of just being a normal heal and letting someone die. All the crit based procs we have aren't helping efficiency, and proc based healing effects are a great way to make sure you kill someone since you can't count on them.

To visit your Arakkoa mistress?

Just like any new class, there is a series of quests that show you how to use your new abilities. When you are done with the chain you should have a full understanding of how it all works

I forget where, but the blues have said that if you are 51 BM and respec, you just can't pull your exotic pet out of the stable. Likewise, all your pets would get an automatic respec

My understanding, read a blue post somewhere, is that if you drop BM or the Beast Mastery talent you don't loose your exotic pet, you just can not access it till you respec back. If it's in the stable you can't switch your current pet to it, and if it's your "active" pet you can't call it to your side and have to either deal with no pet or return to a stable and switch it out for a normal/non-exotic type pet.

If a hunter is 51 points in Beast Master and has the exotic pet talent, walks into a bar and sits down next to a lady and a dog, and they have an exotic pet like a Devilsaur. The hunter asks, "Does your dog bite?" The lady answers, "Never!" The hunter reaches out to pet the dog, and the dog bites his hand. If they choose to respec to either MM or Survival or whatever else makes them lose the 51 BM talent do they just straight up lose that pet? The hunter says, "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite!" The woman replies, "He doesn't. That's not my dog." Or does it get stabled.

Thanks to Pink Panther, I cannot hear/read that joke without imagining it told in a bad French accent.