In my foray into Cataclysm and the new and improved dungeon finder, I found myself taking a liking to healing and tanking random pugs - although sometimes you still had fairly lengthly queues to join as one or the other if you were not the class that was lacking.
I think the Call to Arms addition to the dungeon finder shall prove to be a great thing, for many reasons - although I can single out a few potential niggles at the same time.
It is great because it should indeed shorten queue times, since those that may not be thinking of pugging a dungeon can see that their class is lacking and either through a sense of noble responsibility - or the fact they will get into a dungeon instantly - they are more likely to hit that join button. It is also great because it will encourage those that normally DPS, or dont normally pug - to give it a blast since there is more incentive to get in there. And lastly, who doesn't like free stuff - especially if you were already planning on hitting up a random! (This also however, leads to '1' below)
The downsides I can see to it are:
1) That it may push potential tanks or healers over the precipice from DPS who may not be geared or experienced enough to perform. Whilst it is good to get them practicing right away, that kind of breaking in is in my experience usually best to be done with a group of friends as the group you crash may not appreciate you causing them to wipe way more than they should, and also the backlash of this may put you off of pugging as the abuse and echoes of "Noob" rattle around in their noggins. It may not even be their fault that the group wipes, but lack of confidence and the rest of the group just doing their normal thing and not accommodating for the inexperience can pull what it cant handle or rush.
2) Blackmail. If your role is flashing as "Call to arms" - the douchebags are going to crawl out of the woodwork. People will (its inevitable, even if rare) start to demand certain drops go to them or they will /quit and leave the party in a lengthly (although not as lengthly as before) queue. They may just act like total idiots and ruin everyones experience knowing it is unlikely they are going to be kicked and replaced, and that folks are more likely to just grin and bear it.
Amendment: 3 below does not exist: You must queue up solo. This leads me to a new 3: I see this as a bad thing as it encourages you to do everything without people you know... Not very sociable >:-(
(Invalid)3) Working in a pre-set group with friends or guildies, it is, in my experience, common to find more than one person queuing up as a tank or healer - this might produce conflict if one is not willing to back down or of they both go multi-role that one person might keep getting the role that gets the goodies.(/Invalid)
Overall as I say - I think this is a positive thing, but unfortunately the conflicts mentioned above ARE going to happen from time to time, although you may be lucky enough not to witness it.
Happy hunting!
-V
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