I'm working on herbalism as well and in my short experience there is a pretty familiar pattern. Noobie areas give you noobie herbs. As your skills advance so does the aggro in the areas you need to get herbs from. I think this goes with all the professions though.
So, If you are a low level character trying to gather herbs, leather, blah, blah, blah.... that are advanced then you will need to group with higher level folks to keep the agro off of you while you gather or you will need to duck and dodge as much as possible.
If you are an upper echelon player with high combat skills working on a new gathering profession, you will have to revisit some of those old noob areas and have a pitiful laugh at the folks that are still trying to level up a bit. :)