I'm actually a bit disappointed. I like metaphorically what happened, but I was sort of hoping Rand would turn black as death and really do some god-awful things before being brought back--if brought back at all. I know, people say "he almost destroyed Creation!," but he made a pretty big leap there from balefiring a building full of zombies + Forsaken to destroying all of Creation. I think it would have been awesome/atrocious if he had wiped out the Seanchan, or had taken Tam's life in a fit of rage. What a twist that would have been!

I liked the fact that Rand was going insane. Of course he was--he was constantly talking to himself, talking to a voice inside his head--and the taint had a pretty strong grasp on him. I don't understand why people would think otherwise. I have absolutely no problem saying that LTT was a construct to reconcile knowledge from a previous Age. We all know that the Taint is anti-Pattern, and it's no surprise that it would introduce something that would mess-around with the safeties in place to prevent soul information from seeping from one life to the next.