Warlords of Draenor: No Prof Benefits, Easy-Mode Mining & Herbing

From Blizzard's Warlords of Draenor: Alpha Patch Notes: (Emphasis ours.)

"Professions  

Some of our goals with Professions in Warlords of Draenor are to make them more of a personal choice, and less of a mandatory “min/max” selection. To that end, we're removing the direct combat benefits of Professions. Additionally, we've made it easier to level Mining and Herbalism. Healing Potions have gone mostly unused lately, compared to combat stat potions. We chose to solve that problem, along with a problem with Warlock utility, by having Healing Potions and Healthstones share cooldowns. 

Herbalists can now harvest herbs throughout the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield an Herbalist will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level. 

Miners can now harvest mineral nodes in outdoor areas of the game world without hard skill requirements. The yield a Miner will be able to harvest from each node is now determined by skill level. 

Healing Potions no longer share a cooldown with other potions, but instead share a 60-second cooldown with Healthstones. The cooldown will not reset until the player leaves combat."

The gathering changes seem like a continuation of the gathering changes introduced in Mists of Pandaria that allowed you level gathering completely inside of Pandaria.

This should make leveling a gathering professions while leveling your character much easier. I'm sure we've all had the experience of out-leveling the level of mining and herbalism while leveling and having to either go back and waste time catching up or stop leveling gathering until after you've hit max level.

Since I don't raid or PVP the removal of the stat bonuses won't really affect me although I'm sure some players will enjoy not having to take a professions they don't want to simply because it has the best stat bonus.