5.1 is on the PTR. While this is the first major content patch for Mists of Pandaria, it will not include any new dungeons or raids. Instead, what we are seeing is mainly a progression of story, going from 5.0, in which we are one of the very few Horde/Alliance representatives who have arrived on this mysterious continent, to a point where the full force of the two sides' war machines are coming to do battle.
As it stands right now, the Alliance forces are represented by us, the survivors of Admiral Taylor's Fleet (including Aduin Wrynn,) the survivors of the SI:7 mission to bring the prince home (once could arguably count us among them) and a separate expedition of Night Elves who had been searching for the Pools of Youth, as well as the Vale of Eternal Blossoms. On the Horde side, we've got the very small group of survivors from the initial attack force led by General Nazgrim (which we count as,) and the Dawnchasers led by Sunwalker Dezco. That's all going to change when the beaches of Krasarang become home to two major outposts of the battling sides.
So 5.1 is going to be largely about story, told through quests and scenarios, as well as... another daily quest rep grind (yeah, not sure if that's what most players are clamoring for.) Given the various audio files that have been leaked, it looks like we're going to get a good look at how Pandaria manages to really drive Garrosh over the edge into "we actually have to kill him now" territory as well as showing us how Theramore leaves Jaina so distrusting of the Horde that she actually winds up unintentionally ruining Varian's attempt to reach some reconciliation (wow, quite a role-reversal there, am I right?) Not to mention, it appears that Vol'jin will begin to emerge as the leader of the Horde Resistance against Garrosh.
So it's not a small patch, by any stretch.
Still, I am left wondering how the evolution of the expansion is going to work. In each expansion (plus Vanilla) there have been three raiding tiers (other than Wrath, which had four.) In practice, both Burning Crusade and Vanilla can be said to have three and a half, as Ahn-Qiraj and Sunwell Plateau were not really considered to be within the "official" tiers. (Frankly, we could probably just start calling Ahn-Qiraj tier 3 now that Naxxramas-40 no longer exists.)
Cataclysm only had three tiers, but I think Blizzard would agree with most of the playerbase that Cataclysm's end-game content was underwhelming.
So I expect that we will, at the very least, get another large raid tier between now and the Orgrimmar raid. That leaves us with the question: what will it be?
Now, granted, I think very few of us were expecting Trial of the Crusader when we first started playing Wrath of the Lich King, so it's certainly possible we'll get something out of left field. The obvious raid concepts that I can see coming in future would involve the Mogu and the Zandalari. Now, admittedly, we already have a Mogu raid in Mogu'shan Vaults. That said, MSV is both the super-starter raid (it's arguably tier not-quite-14) and deals more with the ancient Mogu and their connection to the Titans (though with tantalizingly little in terms of concrete answers regarding whether they are really Titan constructs - though maybe I'm just looking for a revelation that isn't there.)
We've been dealing with the major Sha throughout questing and dungeons, and we've got the Sha of Anger out in the world as well as the Sha of Fear as the final boss of Tier 14. Might we come across more Sha? Certainly possible, but I doubt we're going to learn much more about them.
The Mogu raid would, of course, have us confront and defeat Lei Shen, the Thunder King. If you haven't done Lorewalker Cho's quests in Kun Lai (and don't mind a bit of SPOILER,) I'll sum it up: You go to investigate the ancient tombs of the Mogu Emperors up in the mountains of Kun-Lai. When you come to that actual Tomb of the Emperors, you are ambushed by the Zandalari trolls, who, according to ancient prophecy and arriving just in time, come take the Thunder King's body away. You follow them north, where they are attacking a village, but by the time you save the village, it's too late. The Thunder King is alive and kicking. It seems inevitable that we're going to have to fight this guy, as well as his armies. If that means more ornate Mogu buildings, I am totally in favor of that.
The Zandalari could be a major recurring villain for future expansions, but one gets the impression (in those same quests in Kun Lai) that they are becoming a bit desperate. One of the major enemies claims that the Cataclysm destroyed their home. Is Zandalar no more? Could this be why they turned so aggressive? It would explain the face-heel turn of the Zandalari if they are now acting out of desperation, and of course it somewhat mirrors Garrosh with the Horde - using this disaster to gain support for military aggression. We still haven't even seen this "Zul" guy who is apparently leading the Zandalari to war, nor have we seen in-game King Rakhastan (or whatever his name is.) It's not unthinkable that we'd have a raid to take down the Zandalari, and given their presence in Pandaria, it gives us a reason.
Dungeons, I would say, would probably simply relate to the various raids. I know they are pushing Raid Finder as the way to "catch up" now, but I love 5-man content, and eagerly anticipate new ones (more Hour of Twilight than Rise of the Zandalari, please.)
Now, that's all fine and dandy, but what about the 5.1 patch? Might we see more of these "moving the story along" patches? I don't know when we're going to see 5.1 hit (I'm guessing in a month, maybe a bit more) but we know Blizzard wants a faster schedule of new content to ship out. Adding in new features (like Brawler's Guild and item upgrading) and alternating with new raid content would be a good way to keep a constant flow of new stuff.
I could imagine a 5.3 or something in which we get to start really working on the Horde Resistance (the Free Horde? The Horde Underground?) and perhaps get the Trials of the High King (glad they're making Varian a more likable leader - still think the Alliance should be less monolithic in its rulers. We don't need a Warchief here, guys.)
We could easily have up to 5.4 then during the expansion's life cycle, and that's assuming only three raid tiers.
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