I don't think Jordan expected us to be upside-down with that, let alone feel sorry for the "poor Amayar". I think he simply expected more readers would gasp and feel disgusted with the Amayar's nihilism, their murdering of children, their religious fanatism etc. In RJ's mind, refusing to fight like that means giving up and letting the Shadow win. In his mind, we should never go down without a fight, and certainly not give up on life. Once, he equalled the Way of the Leaf with the other extreme: going too far to defeat the Shadow and becoming as evil as the Shadow (the whole Shadar Logoth stuff, and Rand got close to that in TGS). He has "Leafers" in the series, but he's not suggesting at all that the Way of the Leaf (or the Water Way) is a viable concept when something like the Shadow threatens humanity (from his Q&A/interviews, his opinion on that is pretty much Perrin's: a nice ideal for sure, but not something realistic at all in the here and now) A lot of people reacted to the Amayar mass suicide pretty much as as he wanted (which is pretty much how you describe your reaction, IMO) - I think - but RJ also got too many "was that the "gasp moment"? I didn't give a damn..." comments for his taste. RJ was just surprised mass suicide and the murder of children could leave anyone indifferent.