Steddings have been found all over the continent, there has not been any Ogier community still lost outside for well over a millenia, the Ways have been very dangerous and in effect useless since the WoH, and there's no solution nor plans to ever "clean them". In short, while the problem of Shadowspawn using the Ways wasn't known until a few years ago (well, it became accute then anyway... the Ogier have long known of the danger, and that some of the Waygates had been lost to the Blight etc.), there was no good reason to keep the hazard the Ways had been for centuries around, especially since the permanent solution of letting the Waygates die is well-known. There was no benefit in preserving them, only potential problems.

The Ogier have lost so much since the AOL and have a great sensitivity to loss in general. They have lost their freedom to live outside, many of their steddings, then many of the cities and wonders they had built, and more steddings, and all but one of their Groves... Destroying the Ways is obviously abhorent to them, as it's destroying willingly a part of their past, when they've already lost so much of it. Their sentimentalism over issues like this, while understandable, has blinded them to the reality the Ways are nothing but a hazard, even to a few adventurous Ogier. It was certainly irresponsible of the Ogier leaders not to have at least destroyed the Waygates

Their reaction to Rand's request is excusable only by the Ogier's slow nature. Most of them just can't make hasty decisions, even when there's an urgent need for it. It's a flaw in the race, and now it's one their human neighbours will pay for.

I'm pretty sure the massive responsability the Ogier bear for the horrors that have started to happen because of their failure to deal with the Ways when it was time will be a major factor with which Loial will be able to sway the Ogier and convince them it would wrong for them to leave humanity now, when the Ogier's fault at foreseeing and addressing the Ways problem has made thinsg much worse for Light, and no doubt will cause deaths by the tens if not hundreds of thousands before long (Caemlyn alone has over 500,000 - and now it's bursting at the seams...). I think a large role of the Ogier in TG will be to enter the Ways and fight the Shadowspawn there (and maybe guide human channellers to fight with them in there), and destroy the recaptured Waygates tp destroy them. Loial has tried, and humans aren't to blame for not solving the problems. Rand had foreseen it, and took the measures to deal with it. The Ogier Elders have failed him, refusing to do more than guarding the Waygates, while at the same time so many were already discussing opening the book of translation.

I bet Loial will have the Ogier atone for this (and probably at the price of losing a fair percentage of the living Ogier), though that won't bring back the people killed the Shadowspawn, nor the destroyed resources and cities etc. It's a hard price for everyone, Ogier included, to pay for failing to "clear the rubble" that the Ways had become, long ago. A heavy price for being too attached to your past.