I don't get what you mean by that. They didn't sacrifice chronological integrity one bit to get to a climax for Rand and Egwene, and they didn't have to.

I'm not complaining one bit that they pushed Perrin and Mat aside so they could resolve a great deal of things for Rand and Egwene.

That's not what I call dumbing it down either.

What I dislike about the chronology of TGS is how Brandon didn't adhere to Jordan's storytelling conventions. I dislike things like having a Seanchan story line scene set 20 days after Malden in the prologue, with a parallel Rand scene, then to have Rand's storyline move weeks ahead, and suddenly in the middle of nowhere, right before the Seanchan story line crossed Rand's, to have a Tuon scene set the day after the prologue scene, weeks before the upcoming meeting with Rand.

That's very lousy story telling. When he started jumping back and forth, Jordan regrouped chapters more. In his days of much faster POV switches (eg: TGH, but books like KOD too, which was a very good middle ground between the late series and the early series's paces), he was extremely cautious to avoid confusion and stuck to a more linear approach. Brandon wished a faster pace? Then he had to stay more linear, and keep at least Rand and Tuon in synch as their storylines crossed. Egwene was behind, and could remain behind until the end. It's pretty much as simple as that. Reader like you would have had the faster paced book you wished, and readers more like me would not have been put off by all the chronology screw ups and cheats that made it feel a lot less like WOT than it could have been, just with a few fixes and with a bit of polishing up.

If Brandon thought Tuon should appear first in mid-book for dramatic purposes (which is a defendable point), the normal (not just Jordan's) way to do it was to set the scene further on the timeline, and sacrifice the bit about Tylee entering the palace with a Trolloc head, as this happened weeks earlier. You have Tuon still hesitating about what to do - weeks later - balancing an attack on the WT or deciding to meet Rand, and suddenly reaching a decision to meet Rand first. That TGS... without the chronology screw up...

Either that, or you give up and simply put the scene earlier in the book. My opinion on what truly happened? RJ wrote the Tylee scene (like most of the prologue) and didn't outline the Tuon scene. Tuon was with the Mat cluster, and this one was not written when the decision was made to split the book. He knew she'd meet Rand and it would go badly, might even have written this as part of the Rand cluster. So, late in the game Brandon had a need for a few Tuon complementary scenes. Brandon scratched his head a bit, and decided to have the Tuon scene be the direct follow up to the Tylee sequence and the KOD epilogue scene. Brandon of his own admission doesn't master the chronology, so he put the scene where it made dramatic sense to him (and it does, the problem with it isn't that) and ended up with a scene totally misplaced in the chronology, and this was overlooked in the editing.

There's a lot of that in TGS, and it almost always concerned scenes outside the Egwene and Ran clusters, the two Brandon had finished when the decision was made to split the book. Most continuity errors or timeline problems and jumping around too much concerned Tuon, Mat, Perrin - and it speaks of last minute rush.

As for "dumbing it down", what I meant by that is it that it feels like a lot of secondary scenes are missing from TGS, to speed things up (and because a lot of those probably were left for the 5th, as yet unwritten POV cluster). I would include in this the near complete absence of any signs Graendal had put things in motion to accomplish her mission, and also the really shabby build up to her demise, and the dubious decision to make it a cliffhanger, when it made her apparent exit feel so rushed, so unsatisfying. Her absence simplified (dumbed down) Rand's story line. There are many more of those in Egwene's story line: there was no follow-up to BA hunters set-up with Alviarin from KOD. There was no proper set-up to the resolution of the too-young Sitters mystery. There was no proper aftermath to the exposure of Aran'gar among the rebels. Lelaine's plans to use Siuan and the circle was also not properly followed up. This all "simplifies" the story line, and dumbs it down. A lot of the RJ set up simply got wasted that way, for no good reason. Again, I don't think it was done on purpose, but rather because Brandon concentrated on Egwene's main storyline, to return to polish it up with minor scenes and allusion later. When the decision was made to split the book, he didn't have time to polish up in time for the deadline, and this got sacrificed.

This pleased the readers who didn't care for those minor story lines amd just wanted the damn thing to get resolved, but it displeased a lot of readers who invested their interest in them for many years and got cheated of their proper resolution. It also harms the previous books, because what's the interest of spotting the subtleties and all when you know by the end it will all go overboard? And a lot of the late series was concerned with those "details". For a lot of people like me, they were an integral part of the series, and we wanted to see them resolved as much as we wanted to see the Tower reunited and the Seanchan attack. And yes, I think if the price to "speed things up" to cater to the more impatient readers was that (but as I said, I don't think it's at all the reason why they were skipped) then yes it was too high a price, as it has dumbed things down.

And you're wrong it's only maniacs who cared. A lot of the casual readers I spoke too, people who read the series only once and don't post or read MB anywhere, have commented to me they found TGS cool yet felt a bit rushed. I even had to explain to my next door neighbour who read TGS a while ago that the AH scene at the end resolved the too-young sitters mystery. She asked me what had happened to them, and also mentionned her disappointement Alviarin wasn't involved in any way in the BA hunt resolution. She read the books once as they come out or so, so that's hardly a fan-only issue.

To address your beliefs that most fans were pissed off with Jordan and Harriet/Brandon adjusted the book to these opinions, I strongly disagree with you.

I think you're quite wrong to think most fans are so disappointed. Why I think is that a portion of the online fanbase is very disappointed, and often very vocal about it. But it's a minority of the really disappointed readers who are still around and complain loudly. Most people who don't love a book or series anymore simply stop reading. If such a percentage of Jordan's readers were so disappointed, and for so many books, then this would be heavily reflected in the sales. I do know many people who quit along the way, but the sales have not plumeted, so the vast majority of readers are forcibly bearing with Jordan.

The complaint I heard the most often from casual readers (and I know many) isn't that the book got boring and Jordan lost his way. Nah... what they told me most often is that it's not that they weren't enjoying the books, it's that the recent books had become quite complex, and published too far apart, for them to be able to read them only once and get into them. They complained that by the time they really got back into it and placed everyone and all, half the book was over. It's very similar to the criticism we get from casual readers of complex series, like Erikson's, or Martin's. It's difficult works for casual readers, unless they wait until it's all over until it's finished.

A lot of people really got stuck with their frustration with COT. An interesting experience (which I made with a friend) was to have her read KOD straight after. COT frustrated her not at all. She barely noticed it was "slow", rather commented it made a good set up for KOD...

We definitely pay a price for having to wait for each new book. It taints our perspective, and it tends to stick with us long after.