Why not? Humans are intelligent and are terrible at acting for the long term. And again, why would he not destroy everything?
Yes humans are petty bad at acting for the long term, but much of the time it isn't deliberately deciding to wreck the long term, they just place short term above it.
If the Dark One wanted to destroy everything, why did he show alternate futures to Rand with himself in control? Though I guess he could be just taunting him.
But the limitations to his power are his imprisonment. Time is part of Creation.
Note sure I agree that Time is part of Creation, though I suppose it could be, it just seems more a constraint over both. While some constraints to his power are his imprisonment, such as his ability to touch the world, he didn't seem that concerned, and happy to see it growing.
With my hypothesis of him not being that worried about imprisonment, it makes sense to me that he would be frustrated / angry at limitations that have nothing to do with his imprisonment.
Nope.
I envision the Dark One as being the dark counterpart, the dark balance if you will, to the Creator carrying on the theme, the yin yang, light dark, necessity of balance theme that has run through the books...it's somewhat Manichean, I know, but I think it works.
Robert Jordan
Fair enough, that is pretty concrete evidence against my view of them not being equals. Does suggest that Lanfear is right, in that they could take out the Creator if they really wanted, and the potential visions of the future suggest that if the Dark One did successfully break free, it could be at the price of the Creator's existence.
However, even if they are equals, the Dark One may still not want to be free 
