I've found fewer scenes elicit a sense of aww...a feeling of we're actually seeing what happened.

I totally agree with you about the world-opening up, however. I don't think RJ is the greatest writer when it comes to dialogue or prose, but he's a master of undercurrents, which is something that really only thrives in a complex world.

The story itself also got much more interesting after TFOH--before that, it was kind of the classic "good vs evil, a nobody-boy is the hero and must shoulder the burden of being the world's savior." That's been done countless times, and it's boring. RJ took that story--which does resonate well with readers, which is why it (and the story of Jesus) have caught on so well--and greatly expanded on it, adding intrigue to the magic, the metaphysical, and the motivations of all of the characters.

One thing that I like about the GRRM books that RJ didn't really include was that, in GRRM stories, there are very few people who are actually [i]evil[/i], only people who are all simply acting in their own best self-interest. Case in point: everyone starts out after book 1 thinking Jaime Lannister is total scum of the earth. From an outsider's perspective, he is. But GRRM gave is really good rationale, from his POV, as to why he did--and honestly, a lot of it was honorable in a strange sort of way. Tyrion's actions all make sense from his PoV, and it's fun to read how X thinks Y is evil, but Y thinks X is evil--it's all relative in that world.

In RJ's world, almost all of the Forsaken have weird psychological issues that just make them flat out [i]evil[/i] murderers. There really is no rationale for wanting to be on the DO's side, unless you openly accept that you are evil, and willing to do blatantly evil things. I never quite understood the allure of Immortality, considering that the immortal soul is something that's more or less central to the entire idea of the Pattern.