To some extent I agree. Plenty of 'red-shirts' die, but no matter how many names get added to Rand's list, you never really feel worried for anyone of note. Perrin facing the Shaido - no worries for him or Faile. Elayne battling for the throne - meh. And those who don't think the only major screen time character to die (Moraine) won't return are the most casual fan who wouldn't notice someone being beaten to a pulp in front of them, whilst the attacker has an extreme case of BO and is singing at the top of their voice.

WOT is my favourite series by a fair margin, but I wasn't the only one who started reading 'A Song of Ice and Fire' and thought Eddard was going to be 'main hero'. He got plenty of screen time as a fleshed out character and then was killed. Ditto Robb.

Now Rand, Mat and Perrin aren't going to die before the last battle and killing of a character wouldn't have had much impact in books 1 - 4 if none were done after, but a 'tier 2' character dying around book 9 or 10 would have upped the tension level. By tier 2 as a good candidate to have died, I refer to the likes of Egwene, Faile, Elayne, Faile, Nynaeve, Lan, Faile, Aviendha, Thom, Min, Faile, Gawyn - characters who have either had lots of screen time or are very important to one of the main characters.

Seeing one of our main heroes dealing with real loss would have had readers wondering if their favourite non-ta'veren characters were going to even make it to the last battle. TGS could really up the ante with a major death, but if I was a betting man my money would be on everyone still there I've mentioned above alive at the end of the book.