He got like 25 versions of addressing Mat or Tuon in AMOL.

There's a scene where Tuon tells Mat he can address her in one of two ways. Then two scenes later max, the Seanchan characters start using others. WTF! Great Prince, Honored One, Great Empress, Majesty (which is strictly reserved for royalty, not for imperial rulers in RL) we had it all.

Perhaps it was intentioal and Brandon meant this too be funny, but it was just plain annoying to me. If he wanted to make a joke of it, he should have had Mat invent a new hyperbolic title for Tuon now and again. That would have been Mat like.

And let's not even mention how everyone suddenly adopted the habit of Aes Sedai to adress novices as "child".

And yeah, the OP stuff was really quite bad. The new gateway stuff would have been cool, had Brandon included all the rest too.

I suspect it was beyond his skills. He's no military history buff. RJ had left notes/intents about the RW military inspiration he was considering for the LB, had discussed those topics with this assistant Allan, a fellow mil.hist. buff.

Brandon figured out the RW inspiration with help from Allan and an historical advisor.

What I suspect they didn't have, though, is how RJ intended to take that to the next level integrating all the OP fighting into that which he would have developed as he designed in detail the battles, and Brandon (nor Allan) just didn't have the skills and knowledge to alter these RL inspirations to bring in the OP stuff. He used mostly the OP as mobile artillery and most of the rest remained by-the-book 17th-18th century stuff.

The "teaser" of the Algarin Manor in KOD was a serious indication RJ was about to really raise the stakes. He knew Rand wouldn't be involved, but he made sure Asha'man and Aes were there to pick it up.

The way he arranged things, RJ seemed to have meant for the channeling not to be that impressive at first, and with Logain's capture it meant none of that would have time to spread before Elayne's final battle and Merrilor itself. Taim probably would have had a field day at first, shredding armies. It's when the group of sisters and Asha'man with Logain resurfaced that the Light would have brought all this to another level, able at last to match the level of destruction of the Shadow, and on the field the others picked it up exactly as Logain's group had done.

Aviendha would have had massive numbers of women, but the WOs would know warfare, but not much how to use the OP in it.

Still... Cadsuane had been at the Algarin manor, and it's beyond belief she didn't arrange to have stuff of that level available to her for the SG battle. The Asha'man from her inner circle knew those weaves.

But I guess the WO would have pretty much overwhelmed Shadowspawn by their sheer number, leaving the elites around Aviendha/Cadsuane deal with the Dreadlords, and they would have been easy preys to the likes of Graendal who could show up with a cricle and just throw Blossoms of Fire at them and kill hundreds if not thousands of WO in one blow. Even deathgates would be deadly, forcing channelers to abandon their positions to avoid them.

The Light had the numbers, but not the skills or not widespread enough and no time to train - and some of the Shadow's assets (eg: Darkhounds) they would have been hard pressed to deal with after abandonning balefire. Once the Dark Hunt roamed the valley, the Light would have had no choice but to flee, their only salvation the Last Hunt of Hero Wolves.

I guess by the very end, it would have been down to pretty much Aviendha and Cadsuane and a few circles at SG, for example, most Aiel and WO killed by Graendal, her pets and her circles of Dreadlords and Red Veils. Instead it was that from the start, and Brandon held off the Darkhounds until the very end or they would have been a show killer.

Demandred at least had one excuse to hold back: he wanted Rand and was waiting for Rand. He didn't want to finish it off before he surfaced. He wanted Rand at the head of those armies when he dealt it the final blows. He also prided himself by playing by the book, not cheating more than necessary. With a circle of 72 and his san'angreal, he could have ended it at any time. He just didn't want to do that, there was no fun or cleverness in it. He amused himself with duels, and even gave away his san'angreal. Arrogant moron.