The pendulum swings in patch 3.2.2

A while back I wrote a post about gear progression and talent builds, from freshly dinging 80 through the current content. Patch 3.2.2 has changed all that, and I'd like to delve a little bit into this.

Category 1: This remains the same, Arcane is still the best build here because it provides you with 6% spell hit from talents, leaving only 289 spell hit to reach the hit cap.

Category 2: Things have been shaken up here because of the buffs to Arcane damage in patch 3.2.2.
Here are the relevant changes:
Mages
Arcane Blast: The buff from using this ability now stacks up to 4 times instead of 3, and each application increases mana cost by 175% instead of 200%. In addition, the duration of the buff has been reduced to 6 seconds.
Arcane Missiles: Casting this spell while both Missile Barrage and Clearcasting are active will cause only Missile Barrage to be consumed.
Talents
Arcane
Missile Barrage: The effect from triggering this talent now removes the mana cost of Arcane Missiles. In addition, the chance for Arcane Blast to trigger this talent is now 8/16/24/32/40%. All other listed spells continue to have a 4/8/12/16/20% chance to trigger it. This talent no longer has a chance to be triggered when spells miss.
Fire
Combustion: This talent now also increases the critical strike damage bonus of Fire spells by 50% while it is active. In addition, Living Bomb periodic ticks will no longer interact with the count or the charges on the talent.
To sum things up, Arcane damage has increased. Fire damage has increased slightly, and Frostfire damage has increased slightly (from combustion).
This makes changing specs after reaching 368 spell power a little dubious. Arcane damage is on par or better than Frostfire, and Frost spec outputs the lowest damage of all specs by a significant amount. Arcane is still heavily dependent upon spell haste, and Frostfire places a higher priority on spell crit, so depending how your gear is you may be better off with Frostfire.
Category 3: Again the choice to go to Fire spec is dependent upon gear at this point. If your gear is heavily into spell crit, then Fire is going to be better, but if you have a lot of spell haste heavy gear then Arcane will still be better. I'd recommend comparing the two for yourself with your gear selection to see how it works out. I use rawr, and I recommend it.

For further reference Arcane is receiving another buff in patch 3.3, further support for the Arcane spec, which I am highly in favor of. I just wish that Blizzard would make a viable Frost raiding spec possible. Replenishment does not make up for the loss of 1000+ dps.
Mages
Talents
Arcane
Arcane Empowerment: This talent now also grants 1/2/3% increased damage done by the mage's party or raid for 10 seconds after the mage gets a critical strike with Arcane Explosion, Arcane Missiles, Arcane Barrage, or Arcane Blast. This effect is exclusive with Ferocious Inspiration and Sanctified Retribution.