Except if you do the math, and remove the "intro chapters" from the two last books of this storyline (which were needed only because the storyline happened over many books), where nothing new really happened as they were excuses to have the characters sit around and remind the more casual readers of everyone involved in the storyline and the main issues, the whole storyline didn't even last for a third of WOT book (it's barely longer, if that, than the whole TSR Perrin storyline), which can hardly be said of many of the other storylines in the late series. It's also one of the storylines in which Jordan made the most ellipses. It basically went like this: first the set up, which was indeed a tad slow (the whole business of meeting Masema etc.), then the capture itself. Jump ahead weeks later, with barely a bit of the pursuit, then Faile got located. Short digression at So Habor, which was more or less just an excuse to darken the general mood and introduce the ghosts etc. Then we got the axe resolution. Then again, just ahead to the meeting with the Seanchan, a few chapters of set up, and then Malden. If not for the little problem that RJ had four-five storylines to develop in parallel along the same timeline, with the goal of having each of them reach a climax around the same time on the timeline down the line, then the whole Perrin arc could have fitted in a three act structure over the course of a single book (making up about a third of it, even): capture in the first act, pursuit in the second, rescue in the third.

But perhaps we're saying the same thing in the end. I don't agree the storyline itself was slow paced or too long, but if you're saying that the fact it got split in way too many smaller pieces, that each of these pieces were not really satisfying because the pay-off wasn't coming at the end of any, and the whole thing was spread over too many books than I fully agree. Jordan virtually ruined it (and definitely made it more tedious to follow) because of his timeline issues, and the fact that was the last thing he had planned for Perrin before his "epiphany" about leadership and the making of his hammer. It could have been shortened by 4-5 chapters, which would have been the case if the rest of the storylines had been better balanced/more economical, and Jordan didn't need three books to cover the timeline over which the Perrin storyline happened, and three times having to reintroduce the Perrin stuff at the beginning of a book.

I don't think Sanderson did such a good job at concluding the arc. First, he got this bizarre notion that TGS absolutely needed some Perrin, and it's extremely obvious that, since Jordan had planned to start it in AMOL with too much of a bang (actually not so much a bang, but new elements) to his taste (Masema's unexpected end, the disappearance of Gill, etc.), Brandon wrote "prequel" chapters for TGS, that really had nothing interesting to offer and rehashed stuff (and created all sort of continuity errors to boot... it's as if Brandon wrote those Perrin scenes in a last minute rush to get some Perrin into TGS, and didn't even bother to reread the last chapters of KOD before he did. Now he carried these errors in TOM too (like the fact the Asha'man totally forgot they had found the solution to their fatigue and gateways by tying them off in the days just before Malden!!!).

Then, to my taste anyway, Brandon streched things out with Perrin way, way too much in TOM. Did he really need so many chapters (bad ones at that) of wolf dream.? Did Slayer need so many set up scenes? Did he really need to make Perrin regress about the leadership issues (it's like some developments in KOD never happened...) Couldn't he condense the whole thing with the WK by having one meeting between Perrin and Galad, bring up the trial stuff and reveal Morgase right away and have the trial happen right then and there? Of course he could, and I really get the impression it's what RJ had in mind doing. It's rather obvious in hindsight that for acts 1 and 2 of AMOL, RJ planned to have a lot of Rand/Egwene and rather little Perrin and Mat, because in KOD he had set the stage for the conclusion of the Mat/Perrin-Faile stuff to happen in a couple more chapters....

Brandon diluted it all needlessly, came back over and over to the same thoughts and issues for both Faile and Perrin, multiplied the scenes needlessly, all because he's chosen to make a this the main storyline of a book. And it's not like he didn't have some other material he could use. As simple as this storyline was, Brandon still didn't manage to use quite a few of the elements Jordan had put in place, like resolving the issue of why Annoura met with Masema.

Honestly, I think I preferred the Faile rescue storyline to the overstretched Perrin storyline in TOM, but I think it has to do in part with the fact that while Brandon wasn't too bad at writing Perrin (the fact he made him regress needlessly aside) and Faile, he really didn't quite manage to write any of the side players right. Tam, Morgase, Galad, Berelain - they were all off-character and irritating.