Off-spec Prejudice

It's a sad fact that not everyone you meet in WoW is accepting and welcoming of what they perceive as "off-specs." The prevailing attitude among many is that players of hybrid characters are at a marked disadvantage when performing the role of "DPS" in a group because of the capabilities of their class when compared to a "pure DPS" class. So, if I go to gather a pick-up group for a heroic instance, or join a pick-up group looking for a DPS'er, I'm more often than not met with comments like "Ret pally? No thanks, I asked for DPS" or "pallydans cn't do dmg LOLOL" or some other such witty and insightful response. It doesn't matter that I'm sporting tier 5/6 gear, have 2 years of experience playing solely my paladin, and have what I think to be a very good understanding of situations and when to use which ability to maximum benefit. I could link them WWS reports of me doing 1500+ DPS in a raid environment (1756 on Gorefiend this week, a new personal high!) and it wouldn't sway them. People have an ingrained prejudice against off-specs. If someone used the argument "No, we have a warrior tank and need some extra crowd-control" then sure, I'd accept that. As a Ret Paladin, my only crowd control consists of a humanoid incapacitate that is short and breaks on damage (Repentance) or a 6 second stun with a long-ish cooldown (Hammer of Justice). I wouldn't want to run a tough heroic with a warrior tank and no CC (unless of course that warrior is abso-freaking-lutely amazing at multi-target threat generation, which is most often not the case with PUGs). Flat-out denial based on class and spec though, that's just discrimination. I'm sure I'm not the only one to have run into this.

Many would tell me "Josh, if they discriminate based on class then you don't want to group with them anyway." But this prevailing attitude lengthens my time waiting for a group, and diminishes my enjoyment. I know I can't change everybody, but running into groups who exclude me solely because I'm a "retnub" really rub me the wrong way. What's worse is that I know that I can push out more damage than a PvP-specced season 1 rogue or a hunter in greens & blues. If you're not bringing someone for their CC ability and are judging who to bring to a 5-man instance purely on their DPS potential, why would you *not* consider an off-spec hybrid in high level raid gear?