I'll respond to each point you made, including your prologue.

Pro: I suspect I'm rather younger than most people who are WoT fans. My brother introduced me to the series in 2006, when I was 16, with New Spring.

Reading this book, I quickly fell in love with the world that RJ crafted. Sure, there were many things I didn't understand; when I first saw the word myrddraal, I had no clue as to what exactly it was, but I gathered that it was scary. Likewise, I knew nothing of the history of the world, but the quest for the Dragon(who, to me, was completely unknown, etc.) was very interesting.

I was hooked. I finished New Spring in a couple days, and, after a couple days of nervous sweating, wondering what happens to Moiraine and Lan, I finally grabbed my keys and went to the nearest BAM. I bought EotW; at first, I was disappointed. Where were the characters that had put such an impression in me? But I quickly grew used to the change, and, indeed, the ending of EotW was no surprise for me, because I had figured out about Rand by sometime around Whitebridge. And yet, while I was utterly unsurprised, I was equally enthralled by the story.

I ended up blowing through the rest of the series (through KoD, obviously) by the end of my sophomore year in HS. I was absolutely devastated to read about RJ's passing (on wotmania, where I had lurked since I found it while googling WoT stuff around LoC), and was afraid I would never find out about the end of this series that I'd grown to love more than some of my family. When I read (again, on wotmania) that Team Jordan had picked a "suitable" author to finish the series, I was incredibly excited. However, whereas most of you had experience waiting 2-3 years between books, I... didn't.

So, by the time that tGS was released, I was ready to throw money at virtually anything to get my hands on the book quicker.

And then I sat down and read it(after having just finished a complete re-read of the series so far), and... well, tGS wasn't exactly painful, but it was a notable deviation from what RJ had created. I wouldn't say I was disappointed, exactly(that came during ToM), but I sure wasn't nearly as enthralled as I had been.

Anyways, enough about background, let's move on to...

Magic
I can't complain too much about the handling of the OP in the early books. Obviously, in retrospect, it was meant as something we were supposed to grow in understanding of, at the same pace as the main characters. Some things in EotW seemed strange (Moiraine opening a rift below Aginor, who was able to walk on air somehow? And then the rift vanished?), but nowadays I tend to chalk those things up to RJ still experimenting with how he wanted the OP to work.

You mention that in tDR we really start understanding the Power better, and yet, at the start of tSR, we have Rand making a lightning-vortex-thing, the likes of which aren't seen again in the series, so either RJ wanted to point out that, sometimes, the Power operates differently than expected, or he was still experimenting. Regardless, I thought that, with the exception of the more "mystical" points in Rand's life(and most of those early on), that the OP was very well developed, with few if any issues with how it was presented.

But then, as you say, we have the other aspects. Sniffers I felt were just a deus ex that Jordan needed for tGH for some reason. Hurin was super useless, and tGH could have progressed almost exactly as portrayed if Hurin had just been some manservant assigned to Rand, and Perrin had lead the hunt using the wolves. Yes yes, "how would they have found Fain in the mirror world?" There's a million other ways that could have been done, and sniffers just added more random crap that was rather unnecessary.

I actually felt the wolfbrothers were portrayed pretty well(by RJ), but I do agree that there should have been more cameos by people gaining this skill later in the series. I blame the shunting aside of the wolf-powers on BS, as RJ kept a pretty good focus on Perrin using his powers for information gathering and transmission etc.

I was always disappointed in the Dreamwalkers, and BS only made it worse. These were women who had been trained and practiced their skill their whole lives, and, with the exception of Bair, their lives are augmentally long. And then they're barely going toe-to-toe with Black Ajah members that have had months, a year at most, to practice in TAR? And that's not even counting Perrin, who obviously outstripped Egwene in TAR, despite Egwene being "super powerful you guys srsly". So yeah, absolute disappointment here.

To be honest, the only bit of magic in the series that I was consistently curious about was Padan Fain's. I always found the Shadar Logoth magic fascinating, and one of my pet theories is that the Pattern had Fain on the chance that Rand destroyed the DO, so that then Fain/Mashadar would take the DO's place, thus keeping the Wheel balanced. Once again, though, BS makes this super disappointing, with Mat being 'immune' and playing dead. Ugh, just thinking about that pisses me off.

Apocalypse
This one I actually have to nearly completely disagree with you on. I actually thought the story delivered on exactly what it promised, here. Yes, yes, Breaking the World again and whatnot, but those prophecies were supposed to make us as unsure as the people in WoT. The Pattern is all about balance, and the pure physical destruction was all balanced out by the end of the Breaking.

The Dragon's rebirth was supposed to give that soul the chance to purify itself of its own wrongs, while also allowing the "human spirit", if you'll allow me to group them all together, to purify itself in the same way.

Remember, these are no longer the people who touched what should have been left alone, and thus, physical punishment is useless; you don't imprison the son of a serial killer, you give him the chance to redeem the family name. That's what RJ, and the Pattern, were going for, I believe.

The rest of this kind of merges with Prophecies, so I will keep it brief; Order burns to clear His path, and order did burn. Rand was the Lord of Chaos, but Chaos is not always just destruction. Sometimes a forest must burn down, for it to thrive. Sometimes, just the tallest trees must be removed. The Breaking was the forest burning; Rand's coming cleared out the overgrowth.

Prophecies

I, uh, I actually don't have too much to say about this. I personally thought that Rand's coming played out nearly exactly as the Prophecies said. Out of the 14 nations that existed when Rand showed up, only the Borderlands, and to a lesser extent, Amadicia, remained mostly unscathed. Arad Doman, Tarabon, and Altara broke down into civil wars simply because of Rand's appearance at Falme. Cairhien lost the leadership of its two most powerful parties, not because of Rand's name, but simply because Rand was in Cairhien. Tear, Illian, and Andor all had Forsaken usurp them. Murandy certainly had its status quo changed drastically. Sure, the direct actions that caused the change were from the WT and the Band, but neither the Rebel AS nor the Band would have been in Murandy, if not for Rand. Hell, Shara breaks out into civil war because of Rand's proclamation(I don't believe RJ ever meant for Shara to play a role, or if he did, certainly not as large as it was. BS had to come up with something for Demandred, and, ugh).

Even Seanchan is shattered, with Semirhage destroying the entire Imperial line, with the exception of Tuon.

As for the Aiel, I once again blame BS. I think RJ was planning to have the entire Aiel nation alone guard Rand at the Confrontation, and take horrible, horrible losses during the LB. Thus, only a remnant of a remnant would have survived.

As for the Sea Folk, I never found them interesting at all, so I couldn't really care less about their prophecies.

The Shadow

Agreed about the Forsaken, but I think the exact same thing applies to the BA, except they also have the crippling handicap of belonging to the most idiotic organisation in the world of WoT. Thus, the incompetence and sheer ineptitude of all the channeling servants of the DO was not too surprising to me.

As for Shadowspawn, don't forget that not everyone who dealt with them was a channeler and could just swat them away like flies. I completely understand that's an easy trap to fall into, with the slaughter at the manor house late in RJ's tenure, and with BS's waste of time that was the Last Battle, but iirc there were several points later in the series where regular people are in serious danger from Shadowspawn. The Seanchan army that gets mauled by them after Faile is rescued, etc.

Ok, so, I have one point you didn't raise that I'd like to address, too.

Historical Ruins

In the world of WoT, where items of Power paradoxically seem to be lying , just, everywhere, and also still being extremely rare, I was rather disappointed in how little the good guys actually went out of their way to look for things. We hear the Forsaken talk many times about finding stasis boxes and other remnants from the AoL.

And yet, when Rand and co. spot a ruined city on top of a mountain in the Jangai Pass, they say "hey that looks shiny!" and never think about it again. I never understood why, in a world that RJ made sure to specify how many ruins and ancient wonders litter the world, why he also made sure none of the characters ever tried to discover anything useful. With so much world building, I always expected some world exploring to come in the next book, and yet...

Closing Statements
So yes, WoT had many disappointments for me, but at its heart, I really, really enjoyed the story. And, as much as I now despise BS, and will never, ever, ever buy any of his books, I will say this; I thought he did a good job telling Rand's story throughout the finale. I personally LOVED the Confrontation between Rand and the DO, and at the end of the day, Rand's story IS WoT, so everything else is just me bitching.

I'll still never forgive him for Mat, or not showing the Emond's Fielders reuniting at Merrilor, or especially not showing Siuan and Moiraine(both of whom thought the other dead, both with their power drastically reduced, and both with new husbands) reuniting, either. And, in fact, it is that last point that really damns BS in my eyes, as, to bring this post full circle, New Spring was where I first fell in love with this series, and leaving that small-but-vital part out is a capital offense I will never, ever forgive.