Which Tank To Be?

Greetings Noble Dwarf!
I'm writing to you because I've been reading your blog for quite some time and I think it's great. Hopefully your wisdom can help guide me to an answer to a decision I've been wrestling with for quite some time.
I've been raised on D&D. Everything ever taught to me is that dwarves hate magic. They love steel! Anything that can or should be accomplished can be done with sweat, muscle, and a sharp axe! Wow, how I love dwarves. Then I started playing World of Warcraft. I learned the group roles and decided that a dwarven warrior specced to tank would be the best bet.

This is the battle that's gone on with me for over two years. Warriors are everything that I think a dwarf should be in my mind. They're gruff, heavily clad, they shield slam, they have great mitigation. They're so damn frustrating to play, though. Tanking [especially multi-mob and PuGing] is tough!
Paladins on the other hand make great tanks. They AoE tank great and in my opinion they tank bosses just fine too. Paladins are great tanks and they survive everything but they're just not what I envision in my head. Heck, half the "hammers" in the game are odd looking glowy rock things. They don't even look like warhammers. Hammer of Judgement? Great tanking weapon! But, look at it. Ugh.
So, what's your advice - from someone who's playing both classes right now? Should I stick with the iconic class an play a gruff, elf-hating dwarf warrior and just deal with the shortcomings? Or should I deal with the vision of what a dwarf should be and accept that in World of Warcraft a paladin - with is glowy hammers, purple armor, and tanking ability - is what I want to play?

Thanks for the advice and keep up the great blog!

--
Panzor the Invincible

If you had asked me this question a week ago, the answer would be very different than the one you are going to get.

Looking forward to the Expansion, the classes are becoming much more similar.

Paladins are getting many of the abilities you seem to like in Warriors. Paladins are getting a Shield Slam type ability, and another instant attack deep in Prot Tree.
Warriors are getting some nice AoE type abilities deep in their Prot tree. They are also seeing changes that will make it a bit less frustrating to tank 5 mans.
No one has seen the Tier sets yet, but at least initially Warriors and Paladins will wear the exact same gear. The changes made to Paladins are making Warrior type weapons preferable to Caster Swords and Maces. Warriors and Paladins are going to want the same STR/STAM/EXP/HIT plate.
I think both classes are really fun and I'm enjoying both, but my first love will always be my Paladin. My Warrior was created as something of a backup plan in the even the Paladin didn't look appealing in Wrath. I'll go into details in another post, but after looking over the proposed changes to Paladins, I honestly think I could be happy playing any spec of Paladin in Wrath. Prot is getting some really nice tools, Ret is getting a huge utility boost, and Holy actually looks like it might actually be interesting and fun to play.
I strongly recommend you give Kaz's Blog on Paladins in Wrath a read.
Ultimately, no one can tell you what should be play, especially a choice as fundamental as Class: Paladin versus Class: Warrior. When I have to make a decision like this, the deciding factor is always: which spec/class/profession/talents/choice is the most fun for me to play. A great example is Engineering. The helm is fantastic and I love farming motes, but ultimately, those are supporting arguments. It's fun playing an Engineer.