It's easy to understand. You judge the books here from a specific angle, and that's how satisfyingly the story progress in them.

I would have no problem or major disagreement with you if you put it that way: Jordan's storytelling got bogged down through the series, he lost control of his storylines, and to me the middle and late books suffered too greatly from that to be nearly as enjoyable as the earlier ones. I love how it started - especially the middle books - but the build up to the final act, not so much. But what Jordan has planned for the finale is so far much more satisfying than what he put in the few previous books, and the change of writer didn't alter that much for me.

I wouldn't agree, certainly not very far anyway, but I would have no problem with the opinion.

That's really not the same thing Cannoli or me are saying. We're not debating if the story told through TGS and TOM is better than the story as developped by Jordan in books 8-10. We're certainly not saying either that the part of the story told in COT is better than what's told in TGS/TOM. But that's not to be credited to Sanderson (and he's the first one to point that out to people, repeatedly). The story of AMOL is Jordan's, Sanderson filled some gaps between a few key moments, as Jordan had not fully developped some of those things yet. Planned by Jordan, even more importantly painstakingly built to in the previous books by Jordan (foreshadowing for what happens in TGS/TOM is all over the place in previous books, often as early as books 1-2-3 - something else Sanderson has pointed out to people), outlined by Jordan, completed with abundant character notes too. Brandon shaped it into a narrative. That's it!

What we're criticizing is the quality of that narrative itself, in all its aspects BUT the story. There's nothing wrong with the story. The writing of the books is to us very far to the standards of the previous books (good or bad standards, it's a matter of opinion and not relevant to this), for very specific reasons we've both gone into in too many previous posts already. There's no debate at all that the story of the finale so far is indeed the most interesting WOT episodes in very a long time. It's all about the way they were put down into a full narrative on the page by Sanderson, how unpolished and rough and flawed it is, we have serious and more minor problems with (and yes, some story developments too were here and there not fully satisfying in and of themselves, but I wouldn't even think of pointing the finger at Sanderson for this, like the credit for the story of the finale is his, those developments that aren't as good are Jordan's too! At best, I'll say I'm not really satisfied with the way Sanderson failed to integrate the minor players and the minor issues alongside the main storylines, rather giving them (when they've not simply vanished) kind of stand-alones resolution scenes in which we seem to miss what happened between KOD and the resolution. Concretely the roles of players like Dyelin and Birgitte, Siuan and Leane, Lelaine, Romanda, the Ajah Heads, the BA hunters and so on was terribly disappointing as dealt with by Sanderson. The most concrete example is how Alviarin was (not) used, despite the fact Jordan took care to give her at least a scene to build up to a clash of some kind with Mesaana, or the BA hunters, and Egwene with whom she got involved with in KOD... all things Sanderson didn't deliver on, instead "streamlining" the storylines so the first book was all about Rand and Egwene with minimal roles played by secondary players, and no place where to put that back in TOM. It's gone, gone for good. That alone is the most un-WOT thing he has done in the two books. He made the ensemble cast shrink down to a few key main and secondary players, and those players only in their role to service the main storylines. And I'm not talking of an irrelevant innkeeper who has three scenes in the series, I'm talking about players like Domon and Leilwyn, Alviarin, Aran'gar, Mesaana and so on. Did you really expect Mesaana would not even play ANY role between KOD and Egwene's final takeover of the Tower and destruction of the BA? That Graendal would not even have a single scene while Rand was in Arad Doman not even appear in her "final" confrontation with Rand?

That's not WOT, not even the WOT of those books you find the best like TFOH and TSR. After the more simple introduction of TEOTW, the secondary players have always played a big role in WOT. Sanderson did not succeed at telling the central stories while respecting that aspect of the storytelling. He lost way too much time giving too much room to characters like Gawyn. In Jordan's hands, Gawyn would have gotten one POV before deciding to go to Bryne, not several. Same for Aviendha whom Sanderson stretched to many POVs in TGS with tons of redudant elements/repetitions, what Jordan could have dealt with in a single POV completed with background allusions in other chapters to hint at the progression. TOM and TGS are bloated with those unecessary scenes, but at the same time are lacking in secondary background developments we were used to (and for a lot of us, very much liked) in the scenes written by Jordan.

And yes, this very concretely hurt the series. If you have problems with books 8-10, imagine when/if you re read them knowing in advance that all those scenes with Alviarin, Lelaine, etc. you already think are slowing things down - from your perspective anyway - are now there for absolutely no reason, leading to absolutely nothing... I used to love these intracies of WOT, and frankly I don't know if I'll risk a re read of the series at some point, or rather put it all behind me as good memories I prefer to no longer disturb, because I very much fear what Sanderson threw by the wayside in TGS and TOM will totally change my reading experience with books 6-10 in particular. Will it still be fun to spend chapters and chapters of stuff like AS politics, knowing it all ends simplistically and rushed at the end, with they key players suddenly losing many IQ points and acting completely off character? I'm very afraid not, and that's why I haven't risked a re read since TOM. Perhaps AMOL will be really different and change that, but my expectations are very low.