I am both irritated by how escapist it is, with it's over-reliance on overwrought descriptions and details, and I've always struggled with a feeling that this series just doesn't matter and it was wasting its' readers time and many trees besides.

I'm honestly not sure what to think of "Wheel of Time". To me, it hovers somewhere near the "Twilight Saga" level of average-ness. "WoT", in all it's immensity, simply "is", because there are so many books. It would be like taking "Star Trek" as an entire series and trying to rate it - certain episodes are extremely good, others are horrible and many of the movies are fit only for throwing in the trash.

Now, I think the problem with many of the fans of "WoT" is that they can't easily perceive exactly why this series is so annoying to so many people. Everyone seems to have multiple friends who started out reading this, and then dropped it, so it really seems to be a reflection more on the type of reader that wants this type of story versus having the story good on its' own merits. There are quite honestly books in this series which are so horribly boring and wretched that fans themselves have to implore less-convinced readers to continue on because "it gets better in the next book!". I'm not sure if that is damning praise or good advertising.