As grateful as I am that Blizzard has been listening and spoiling us, I feel like the overwhelming majority of hunters are disappointed at the 8 taming challenge pets that we got. I think Blizzard is listening, and if the vast majority of us are as disappointed as I'm picking up on, we might get lucky and convince them to change their minds before patch day. Worth a shot, right? These would have been my suggestions to Blizzard, based on the feedback I've been hearing from all of you. A handful of Spirit Beasts, but a VARIETY of very pretty NON-exotics for non-BM hunters. As opposed to a couple of unused skins and too many spiders.
#1) Ban'thalos
#2) Either Ahnka OR Magria. They are too similar to release at the same time, and considering most of the feedback on here is about lack of variety, that would help a lot.
#3) Black Skoll.
#4) One of the flaming skeletal dogs, except as a beast. Blizzard knows how bad we all want one. Despite it's undead-liness, I still think it should be in the Dog family so that non-BM hunters can have shinies too. I know that it looks more elemental or undead than a beast, but if there's any patch to make it an exception, it's the Firelands one. A random firey animal makes more sense here.
#5) A Phoenix, as a Spirit Beast. I know there's a rare one flying around the zone somewhere. (The name escapes me.) This would have to be a Spirit Beast because it couldn't fit into any other category, and it's way too mythical. Again, this fits with the Firelands patch perfectly.
#6) Fandral Staghelm's flaming cat form. The problem with this, though, is that it would probably need the armor removed to be "believable" as a beast. I think that with no armor, this could be in the Cat family, for the same reason as the skeletal dog above. Of course, then we run the risk of every hunter running around with a Cat named "RedXIII".
#7) I would love to see Malorne's beautiful stag-form represented as tamable in here somewhere. (Or an off-color knockoff.) I would normally say make it a stag instead of a Spirit Beast, but until we get stags as a regular family, Spirit Beast it would have to be. Stags as a regular family. Stags. STAGS. Wink wink. -ahem-
#8) Deth'tilac. Ol' Dethy can stay as a Spider, but in all fairness, I would love to see a spider model of a Spirit Beast. Seems like a perfect choice if you give it some cool particle effects, but again, I wouldn't want everyone overloaded with Spirit Beasts. But, PURPLE FIRE. Think about how awesome that would be. Also, make the "non-rare" red/orange/yellow/green versions of the rest of the lava spiders tamable.
Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? Lore-problems? Spiteful feedback? Trolling? I'm just throwing ideas out in case Noah's listening. Anybody else want to toss out their own personal dream team? It can't hurt.