I think that Rand is stronger now than LTT was. Or atleast has some new way of using the OP that LTT did not know. It has been suggested that it was pure skill that allowed Rand to singlehandedly kill an entire army of trollocs, but I don't really buy that for several reasons.

First of all, we have a channeler (Naeff) who actually sees and describes what Rand does.



We know that the more weaves you channel at once, (especially ones that are powerfull like the one Rand uses) the more power you need. If this was simply a case of Rand using pure skill to achieve this, then Naeff would likely have seen fewer weaves that were incredibly intricate. Instead Naeff says that Rand is channeling huge amount of different weaves simultaneously.

There is also the fact that Naeff has been around Rand for a while, including I believe during the trolloc attack when LTT took over. Anyway, he has seen Rand wield the power, and he still seems shocked. No, I don't deny that LTT's AoL skills played a role, but there was more going on there than just that.

The fact that what Rand did caused the darkfriends in the vicinity (who did not even SEE the battle) to go insane due to a mysterious "light" that only they could see further implies that something more was going on. What I suspect is that Rand has some totally new way of wielding the OP that he can do thanks to the extreme state of peace and enlightenment that he has achieved. A level of enlightenment that LTT never reached.

The second reason why I think this cannot simply be a matter of LTT's AoL skills is due to the forsaken. It is true that LTT was said to be the most acclaimed man of his age, but even so there were others close to him in skill. Demandred for example was said to be only slightly less strong and skilled than LTT overall, and many of the other forsaken were close to LTT too. Some were even better in some specific areas even if they were not better overall. If Rand's ability to destroy an entire army was simply due to the superiour Age of Legends training, then one would presume that the forsaken thanks to THEIR AoL training would be able to replicate that feat, or atleast come close. And yet, we have never seen any of them, even Ishamael/Moridin, to do anything close to it.

For example, why would Moridin not have attacked the borderlander army and done to them what Rand did to the trollocs. Why has Demandred (who was only slightly weaker and less skilled than LTT) not have done what Rand did to the Aiel that follow Rand. Why would the DO not have ordered the rest of the forsaken to each choose an army loyal to Rand/light and had the forsaken use the same skills that LTT had to devastate them.

The answer is simple, they cannot. The forsaken have not done to Rand's troops, what Rand did to the Dark Ones trollocs because they cannot. Whatever has happened to Rand, it has caused him to grow far beyond the forsaken like Demandred or Graendal.

And since none of the forsaken ever suggested that LTT could do these kinds of things, it is likely that what Rand can now do is something unique to him, and not something LTT could do. Maybe LTT had the potential to achieve what Rand has achieved back in AoL, but for whatever reason he never managed to come to the understanding that Rand has now reached.

I think that right now, only Shaidar Haran who is the DO's avatar, and maybe Moridin if the DO aids him directly, can challenge Rand now. In pure combat atleast.