The Trolloc Wars were a three-century war, without a clear cut but rather a very dragged out finish, most likely.

After the trauma of that war, and no foreknowledge that this wouldn't come again sooner than later, it would make sense there were factions in the Tower that were adamant that this sort of testing should become the permanent norm by which the qualifications of a woman for the shawl were measured. Between the lines, it appears the White Tower was far from ready for the Trolloc Wars. They had just gone through five centuries of a sort of Renaissance, with near global peace and a rise in the Tower's standing in the world (the Covenant of Ten Nations was the work of the Grey Mabriam en Sheered). They may very well have become a bit complacement about the Shadow, a little too self-assured that a new Golden Age was right on the corner.

This ter'angreal would be put to much better use training sisters in the art of combat than for any testing... It would make sense for the Yellows with the proper personalities to go through this sort of training, so they could act as battlefield medics. For most Yellows, this is useless - very few Aes Sedai ever sees a battlefield in their life. It's not learning under threat they need, it's gaining the experience to perform healing even in difficult conditions.

As Nynaeve implied in her criticism, a great deal of the test was about putting her in situations where she should have made a judgement call whether she should help or not. except the universal answer was always she had to detach herself from everything, to go perform useless weaves. The thing is, the greater purpose for Nyaneve in most of these situations was to use her skills to help the people, not to abandon them!

What it looks to me is that this test was originally targeted at an ingrained mentality, an AOL revival during the Covenant, that Aes Sedai were to be servants of all whenever they could. With the Trolloc Wars, the Tower had to drill into the sisters and the recruits that they had to abandon this mentality because the decision had been made that the whole Tower's priority was to survive and fight the war and that for now that would be the only way in which the sisters would serve all. This test was good to determine which sisters and recruits were "hard" enough to cope with this. It's a fairly good test to separate those who would make good soldiers from those who wouldn't.

My hunch is that the "aloofness" of the Green Ajah dates back from the aftermath of the Trolloc Wars. I bet the Ajah was unready for the Trolloc Wars, and sort of promised themselves that in the future they would stand aside from the day-to-day fight with the Shadow (Blight etc.) to be ready for another general attack, be it another TW or Tarmon Gai'don. It maybe from this era that came the apparent mentality that a Green Sister ought to do not much else than train, get many warders, let them train and together "stand ready".

One problem with this is that most of the Tower post-TW seems to have adopted this mentality that Aes Sedai should "stand aside", instead of spreading out and be servants of all. They played the Shadow's game doing this. Over the centuries, this new mentality of a Tower frightened not to be ready for another Trolloc Warsand holding itself in reserve became detachement and aloofness and the loss of the service mentality. The Aes Sedai tend to now see themselves as too valuable for the world to serve the world. Today's AS tend to see what their AOL predecessors considered their duty and mission above all else as "menial jobs" below their standing. They don't build, they don't work at technological advances, they don't look for ways to bring progress or better the general living of anyone, they don't touch the weather or help with crops, have not tought of ways to bring Healing to the population at large etc. They even loath selling stuff they make - sheesh... in the AOL it looks like the AS never tired up of inventing new things to send into mass production!

Instead of using their skills to the utmost on a daily basis, they all "stood ready" for this once in an Age mission, and over the centuries ironically they even let themselves become completely unready to face that, Tarmon Gai'don. As their value to people in general got lower and lower (most people spend their whole life without seing even the shadow of a service rendered them by a channeller), they became more and more obsessed with the rulers and politics. The most visible actions from the Tower for millenia now are strictly diplomatic and political. They placed all their efforts not on service, but on maintaining and increasing their standing and power over the rulers, through politics. It's now how they maintain their dominion: if you can't gain the respect and love of the masses, control those who rule the people and they'll have no choice to follow. It's no wonder the regular folk neither respect nor like them very much now - and barely know anything true about them.

You get the feeling that things were really different in the AOL. Aes Sedai were everywhere, and you could see tangible evidence of their service to society looking out of the window, or roasting your toasts in the morning. It's probably not LTT and the Hall that sought dominion during the war. Rather the people turned to the Aes Sedai, because they trusted them and found them the better equiped to lead the War. Not only that, but wartime calls for fast decisions and some sort of unique command, and no one was afraid to put the First Among the Servants in charge, and to let him supervise the politicians... LTT was not seen as a threat, political or otherwise.

In the New Era, few trust the AS, and few wants them in charge of anything - and all believe they will do their utmost to grab power and be in charge, and it's not altogether false... The mentality of today's AS is a complete travesty of their AOL counterparts', and yet they want all the respect and honour and influence that the people were freely granting the AS in LTT's times.

The Tower will need more and more sisters who think like Nynaeve and Elayne after TG, and could have used a revolution in this matter centuries ago... Even Egwene isn't seeing clearly enough what the Tower ought to be, or rather what the AS will need to do if they want to deserve the standing, power and respect Egwene wants to be theirs again. Among other things, it should include a gradual detachment from politics. The Tower should build up power not because the OP makes them powerful, but seek to increase its influence because they're so valuable to society it becomes unthinkable not to seek the opinion of the WT. The best way the WT could encourage peace isn't by playing politics with the rulers, it would be by providing invaluable services to every nation (Travelling, Healing, building, weather control, ter'angreal, agriculture... there's so much they could do) and make clear the WT will pull out all its Aes Sedai if a nation goes to war. Rulers would think twice before losing all this, crippling their economy and all by going to war, and that's where the Greys could come in to help settle conflicts peacefully. Etc. Of course, before the Tower could become such an organization, it needs to get the allegiance or an alliance with all the other channellers, or this will turn rapidly into pre-Empire Seanchan, with powerful channelers at war with one another and standing with different factions/nations. It's one of the main reason why the male and female channellers must become able to speak with one voice and belong to the same organization, and it's also important that Elayne's efforts to secure channellers for her nation and her nation alone be stopped and retought, before this escalates, with Tear or Illian making approaches to other groups, for instance the Asha'man, out of fear and jealousy of Andor.

Egwene really will have a lot on her plate post-TG.