I loved my Earth Elemental when leveling through Outland and Northrend. Nothing like having your own personal tank-in-a-box.

it's hard to rate the shaman pets any better than rare. they're restricted to range of the totem, completely uncontrollable, and have extremely long cd's.

i love having my elemental totems when i can, for soloing quests and leveling they can be quite helpful (when the cd is up), but the lack of control / range issues make their use very limited.