Not exactly, WOTLK had plenty of tanking gear through the lower levels. I could list them off but it would take me awhile so I will just mention that I got three tanking upgrades just running a single Nexus, then got further upgrades later on in Grizzly Hills, including a blue shield from the Ursoc chain. I actually tank leveled on my Blood Elf Paladin and never found myself short on upgrades from 70-80. There is also gear from Wrathgate, Ragemane, the Earthen Chain, etc...
The tank gear "shortage" during the leveling was only an issue in vanilla and burning crusade.
Let us not forget though, that even taking that into account, the changes in 4.0 have made it perfectly viable to tank in DPS gear. Health normalization means all DPS gear will have the same stamina as tank gear, defense was baked into talents so we automatically have critical immunity, and reforging means even if I do get a blue bracer with strength, stamina, and haste, I can convert half of that haste into parry, dodge, or mastery instead for extra avoidance/mitigation.
Right now, if you gem purely into stamina, your T10 will have almost the amount of stamina you would find in a "Hyjal" blue, and remember that Hyjal is one of the Cataclysm starter zones. Once you hit Deepholme (83-84) most green chests and legs, even healing ones, will have over 300 base stamina.
