Whatever the writing is or isn't, I think they appeal to different tastes in fans. There's enough stuff that people can what if for a good long while after the series ends, and enough of them that they will. That they weren't doing it on the wotmania WoTMB was a site problem as much as a series problem; they fed each other, but DM survived, and other sites were born. Ironically, if wotmania had held it together another half a year the buzz from and then release of TGS would have created the same resurgent activity seen at the other WoT sites (and if anyone missed it, the WoTMB is generally a lot more active than this and other boards now.

The fan base isn't going to just go re-read the last Martin book when WoT ends. When the whole series ends, it won't just be some individual theories being crushed or vindicated: It will be ALL of them. Any question not answered by that point probably never will be, but virtually all of the big questions will be answered. We'll know how Mat and Thom rescue Moiraine and what happens with the Mats eye. We'll know how Rand defeats the DO and the Forsaken. We'll know who killed Asmodean. We'll finally see Demandred. That's just the big stuff.

Once all that is known, there will be a wealth of discussion for some time. How much remains to be seen; I recently posted Michael Martinez' seminal "Do Balrogs Have Wings?" essay on this very site, in the process learning that not only is it on Wikipedia, but several other sites, and Martinez also hosts it on a dedicated fiction site of his own. As a wotmania RAFOlk (i.e. someone who NEVER posts on the WoTMB, though I actually do) I think the far more immediate concern is whether the remaining WoT books will generate enough traffic for THIS site that a functional core of newbs will exist for the future.

'Cos the thing I keep stressing and that seems to be minimized is that one day you or I or both of us is probably going to get too busy or too stressed or too focused on something else or SOMETHING so that we can't come here for even an hour or two a day. That's life. It will keep happening to wotmaniacs one by one until there's no one left, even if it takes 72 odd years. Unless we give people a reason to come here, and for the next few years WoT is a big one, all the domain names and servers in the world can't preserve the wotmania community we're trying to transplant. The day will most definitely come when WoT has to be almost an archive, but this is the internet; that day's not coming for at least two or three YEARS, so in the interim the WoT aspect is going to remain a big part of it per necessity.