WoW newbie looking for advice

[Treesh]

It may be inefficient, but the importance of starting this way is to get you into the good habit of following this method for when you get higher and you are assured to see fights that last the majority of a SW:P. If you get into the mind set of dropping the DoTs first along with VE, you are getting into best practices for things like instance fights where dropping a Mind Blast or SW:Death right off will pull aggro and get the mob on you instead of the tank.

Also, if he has 5/5 Shadow Focus, he should be taking on mobs that are 2 or 3 levels up as he has built in 10% spell hit (16% spell hit being maximum for hittings mob +3 levels).

There's a difference between habit and just blindly mashing the same key sequence every time. Really, the best habit to get into is choosing the proper spell rotation for the situation. If you get too set in "I always cast things this way" then you end up lost when things go wrong and you need to assess and adapt on the fly. So, really, learn the best sequence for solo, the best sequence for small group, the best sequence for large group and you'll end up with a much better array of tools in your toolbox and hopefully the ability to choose the proper tools for the job.