It gets much, much better in later books (the first is the hardest to get into), though personally I don't think Erikson is a suggestion that fits your criterias from your first post.

Can't really think of anyone fitting most of them (with the comparison to Jordan or Ruthfuss thrown in too) except Sanderson. Especially with his latest, though Mistborn is also a good choice.

Most of the younger writers seem to be writing in reaction to series like WOT from the 1990s rather than being inspired by Jordan and co. and writing stuff in this vein. Sanderson is one of the exceptions, and probably the only writer who truly reminded me of RJ/WOT a bit when I read him. It's fun, it's epic and his action scenes are very visual, his characters are a bit cliché and thin but they're built much in the traditions of Jordan's, with lots of magic and interesting and well-defined and built magic systems. Overall it's fun (and funny) books. The writing/pacing is a lot more modern than Jordan, though - closer to script writing with may scenes driven by dialogue than to the old fashioned, very descriptive style of Jordan.

Another choice would be Tad Williams (though what I really liked from him was his SF series, I never finished any of his Fantasy novels but my criterias aren't the same as yours).