Wealthy elves I have known
It's probably true that the best way to make money in the game is to farm primals, but sometimes you just can't stomach the idea of killing yet another elemental or -- given how busy most of the primal hot-spots are -- having to compete to kill them. It's in trying times like these that your thoughts turn to quieter pursuits like flower-picking, finishing some quests you left lying around, or at least taking your mindless slaughter act on the road.
For my money, nothing beats the manaforges in Netherstorm. The elves there are like hundreds of milling, unsuspecting piñatas, ripe for the clobbering. Over an hourlong grind session with not-terrible gear, and with occasional breaks to tell people that you will never set foot in Shattered Halls ever again even if it is the daily, you can get the following:
17g in cash drops
24g in netherweave cloth (if it's not selling for much on the AH, make them into bandages and vendor 'em for 6g a stack)
2-7 arcane tomes depending on your luck (selling on average for 15g each on my server)
12-35g in green drops
Dreaming Glory and Netherbloom spawns if you're an herbalist, Adamantite and Rich Adamantite veins if you're a miner, and the occasional gas clouds if you're an engineer
And, once in a blue (har!) moon, something like Legguards of the Shattered Hand or Design: Solid Star of Elune (and yeah, I know they could technically drop anywhere, but don't spoil my statistically pointless fun)
On the low end, it's roughly 80g/hour; on the high end, depending on the state of your server's economy and how lucky you get with tomes and drops, it can exceed 200g/hour. Not bad for a bunch of elves who supposedly lost everything when the Scourge put Quel'thalas to the torch.
People get very attached to their own private farming patches, so your mileage may vary. But whether it's fantastic luck or they really are that lucrative, I seem to get more out of grinding the elves than anything else.
