is there progression gates on lord?

i took time away from lordaeron and recently wanted to come back, i was 70 on my dk and 55 on my warr and i wanted to get my warr to 80 instead of the dk, so ill be a little late to the endgame party.

wiith TOC now being out, im worried about missing the early content, i like ICC, not too fond of TOC, but i absolutely love naxx and ulduar and dont want to miss out on them because nobody else runs them.

basically, i dont want to take the time to level to 80 only to jump right into the worst content of this entire xpac and miss out on the best of it because nobody on the server has any reason to run it. i would run those 2 tiers weekly just for fun even if i was in TOC gear, but i doubt there are 24 like minded players who are gonna play at the same time as me to be able to do that. is content gated like it is in dalaran? does anyone run the old stuff still(regularly)? or do 80s jump straight to 5man TOC and gear up there?

I think you know the answer to that buddy. Sucks...