If you're not min-maxing at the level cap, your best bet will generally be at least one, if not two, of the three Gathering professions, Skinning, Mining, and Herbalism. If you do decide to take a crafting profession, choose the gathering profession that meshes most closely with it (i.e., if you take Leatherworking, grab Skinning, Engineering, grab Mining, or Alchemy or Inscription, take Herbalism.)
If you want to make money using a crafting profession, the best choice before the cap will be Inscription, as the Glyphs you can produce as early as level 5 will be used even by level 80 characters, providing you with a constant market.
If you want to produce things you yourself will use on a regular basis, Engineering provides fun toys, and trinkets at much lower levels than they'll be availiable as drops. Leatherworking allows you to make your own armor, but drops and quest rewards will, for the most part, be better than what you can craft - at least until the Cataclysm expansion releases. Alchemy will allow you to make a variety of useful consumables, but in general, you will have to make many more than you'll be able to use as you level, and there won't be much of a market for what you craft.
Enchanting is a viable option as well, and you'll be able to enchant your own gear as you level, which is handy.
Realistically, until the +Stat bonuses at 400+ skill come into play, there really isn't a 'best' or 'most useful' profession. There are a few that will be much less useful to you as a hunter, such as Blacksmithing and Tailoring, but for the most part, you should be fine picking out whatever you find fun.
The only other major note worth making is that each of the three gathering professions provides a free 'passive' boost as well. Mining will give you some extra Stamina for free, Skinning will give your character increased critical strike chance, and Herbalism will teach you Lifeblood, a free Heal-Over-Time spell you can cast on yourself on a short cooldown. The crit from Skinning especially should be very handy for a low level hunter, though the other two perks are nothing to sneeze at either.
1) Most classic achievements aren't going anywhere with Cataclysm. Of those you cited, none are going anywhere, though the requirements for some are changing (If you already have them, you don't need to worry about it, but if you don't, you'll need to meet the new requirements. In some cases, these are actually easier than the old ones - Zul'Gurub is being removed from Classic Raider - in others, it's essentially resetting all your hard work on, for instance, Loremaster, if you don't finish. Some other changes:
- Did Somebody Order a Knuckle Sandwich and Master of Arms were changed to Feats of Strength in Patch 4.0, with the removal of Weapon skill. If you missed out on these, it's too late already, sorry!
- The Green Hills of Stranglethorn, and with it, the collected Nesingwary achievements, are - somewhat surprisingly - not going anywhere.
- With the removal of Zul'Gurub, The Deadliest Catch - will become a FoS, and no longer obtainable. Similarly, if you have any interest in a rare Raptor or Tiger mount, with it's attendant FoS, you have about a month left to farm one up.
- Zul'Gurub is also where you go to farm rep with the Zandalar Tribe, whose reputation is being removed with the Cataclysm. You can also buy this rep off of the AH in the form of a whole lot of token turn-ins.
- Since you asked - the Hydraxian Waterlords, (and Molten Core), aren't going anywhere. You're welcome to keep farming that rep well into the expansion.
- Finally, while Insane in the Membrane is not being explicitly removed, several of it's requirements will become impossible after the Cataclysm. Notably, there will no longer be any way to gain Bloodsail Buccaneers Rep (which also means if you want that Bloodsail Admiral title, you're running out of time for that too...), and the Librams needed for Shen'dralar rep no longer drop anywhere, and the NPC's to turn some of them into have disappeared. Ravenholdt will still be doable, but significantly more grindy, as the Syndicate mobs which you used to be able to kill to get to Honored have been removed - it's Junkboxes all the way to Exalted.
2) No. When the Shattering happens, it happens for everybody, regardless of their sub status. The world changes will be reflected in the vanilla game, and not buying the expansion is not going to buy you time to work on old achievements. The clock is ticking!
3) There are no TBC achievements changing as far as I know, but several Wrath raiding achievements are going to get the FoS treatment, since attempting them at level 85 trivializes them. These include the various ToGC tribute runs, The Immortal/The Undying, Champion/Conqueror of Ulduar and He Feeds on Your Tears
An easy way to check on future availability of any achievement in which you're interested is to look it up on WoWHead, and then click on the "Cata" link in the top left corner, which will show you how it is being changed in the Expansion (if at all). If it's been recategorized as an FoS, or had it's criteria changed, you should see the difference.
Best Answer
Keys to heroic instances in BC are bought from the vendors for various reputations at Honored rep.
and for Magister's Terrace you must complete the quest for it in regular difficulty. For all the rep based ones it's pretty easy to get enough rep just by question, if not doing one or two regular instances. A list can be found here. http://www.wowwiki.com/Instance_attunement