... A big HELLO to everyone?

Beyond that, after reading Attack of the Trollocs, featuring light/heavy cavalry smashing into left/right flank, (pick one that suits you), I'm left with that taste in my mouth that you get after eating a bag of cheesypoofs that were left open on the counter for a week. You know the feeling, you're licking your lips thinking to yourself; that wasn't what I was looking forward to. So you reach back into the bag, fish around a bit more and alas, all you get for your troubles are crumbs and fingers that you don't want to suck on. Don't get me wrong, if you like large-scale warfare, you probably enjoyed the book immensely. I, OTOH, had come to expect more from WoT.

There were a few revelations, such as exactly what happened to Lanfear in Finn-land, and where Demandred had been hiding raising his armies. We also learned that Demandred was the one that found and trained Taim, (somewhat of a surprise there, since the consensus was he was Ishy's minion). I was a little confused about Graendal's new body, since I don't recall her dying and there wasn't an explanation. (Someone refresh my memory if she died in the last book, as I didn't do a reread and don't remember). Oh, and Rand's little trick of singing while Shielded and making things grow was pretty cool.

As to some of the things I'm left shaking my head about:

Morgase~ We read chapter after tedious chapter of her character, as if she had some major role to play at some point. Nope. She could have died by Rahvin's hand in book 5, and I don't think anyone would have missed her except Gawyn.

Aiel WO channelers~ Correct me if I'm wrong, the Shaido that Perrin chased after for the better part of the series had something like 400 Wise Ones, 200 of which could channel. That's one clan. One out of twelve. All things being equal, eleven clans with 200 channelers each should come out to over 2,000 channelers. Even if the other clans are only half the size of the Shaido, there should still be over 1,000. Throughout the whole series we meet Amys, Melaine and a few others, but come the last battle their host of channelers are MIA. Maybe the Shaido dogs got all the channeling genes?

Black Ajah~ After tremendous build-up throughout the series, they aren't worthy of a mention on judgement day. We know that some escaped the WT purge and assume they went on to become dreadlords, yet only Alviahrin gets credit in her cameo appearance.

Asha'man~ Same lack here. We get limited playtime from a few of Taim's cronies, but for the most part get lulled with Androl and Pevara, (tin-whistle and triangle when the audience was yelling for more cowbell)

Logain~ What a huge disappointment this character was. Revenge eating away at his soul to the extent he can't dig his head out of his a$$ with both hands and a shovel. I am left wondering why Androl and Pevara bothered rescuing him. What was the point? So he could wuss-out against Demandred? Think about this; Logain was willing to use Balefire to retrieve the sa'angreal scepter from the crystal, yet didn't think to prepare the same weave before stepping through the Gateway to attack Demandred. (I spell that D-U-M dumb!) He only gains some measure of redemption by helping rescue children from Trollocs due to the pleading of Androl. His hard-earned reward is inheriting command of the BT and now gets to match wits with Cadsuane.

Duels~ Let's take a pause, (three of them), in the middle of leading the Dark Ones armies in the Last Battle, to do a little mano-a-mano sword fighting. Yikes! While it was good to see Lan sheath the sword to defeat Demandred, it was a bit over the top sending in the cannon-fodder first.

In the same vein, what was up with Rand sword-fighting Moridin in the Pit of Doom? Aren't they both channelers extraordinaire? (On top of which Rand was using Callandor, a crystal sa'angreal) Where was the intriguing rematch of the duel they had in the Stone of Tear? And why, of all the possible people to link with, did Rand take Moirainne? Her strength in the OP was so diminished that she would contribute zilch. The only plausible explanation I can think of was that since she was with him at the beginning, she therefore had to be with him at the end. Neat storywise, but pretty lame otherwise. (Why not a full circle if you are wanting maximum power?)

The OP in battle~ It's a little baffling to me that we didn't see Deathgates and the other weaves Rand used against the Trolloc army in KoD. Pulling the Lightside channelers aside for fifteen minutes to teach them some ultra-effective weaves against Shadowspawn seems like time well spent. Lightning and Fireballs that kept getting unravelled by the opposing force seemed like a waste of time. The other small issue I have is that we learned about inverting weaves about 7 books ago. It might take more time, energy, skill or strength, but in the long run, wouldn't an effective attack be better than something that gets blocked or unravelled? I was looking forward to something more imaginative, along the lines of what we witnessed at Dumai wells, with protective domes and exploding heads.

Cameos~ As others have noted, the name-dropping of favorites like Hurin, Juilin, Thom, et.al. felt forced.

The Conclusion~ After spending around 900 pages waging war, Sanderson felt compelled to rush through the ending in a few brief hurried pages. (A couple paragraphs to wrap up Fain, etc.) It was like he was weary from having fought all those battles himself.

Despite my lackluster review, I still enjoyed the story as a whole. At the same time, I had held out hope for so much more. RJ was a true master of foreshadowing, character development and world building. He laid the foundation for so many possible outcomes that he inspired multiple websites devoted to discussion and theorizing about what direction the story would take. In the end though, there were few plot twists that caught us off guard and occam's razor ruled the day.

I would like to say thanks to all those here that engaged me in debates. I truly enjoyed reading others' opinions and hope you felt the same. My time spent here and at wotmania gave me the opportunity to interact with others that were likewise inspired by RJ's epic, and gave me a deeper appreciation for the story we shared together.

On a side-note, one other thing that left me smiling came on page 613, close to the bottom of the page. Mat was thinking about old battles: "The Fall of Pipkin." I couldn't help but do a double-take at seeing my last name mentioned in the last book.