I'll leave praise for the end, fyi.

There's a bit of confusion on Ages. We don't know how they square with evolution, for one thing. We also don't know how long they last. RJ made a point of stating that some Ages have featured the Last Battle, but fought without any use of the Power at all (which might raise many DO questions, but that's a bigtime tangent)...

I definitely disagree with how you tie Randland into "our time." We don't really know that "our" Age (one with America and Moscow) was the Age that directly preceded the AoL. More to the point, we don't even know if it was in Randland's present cycle of Ages. I always assumed Mosc and Merk were from the 5th or 6th Age of the previous cycle (or something like that).

In support of this idea is my next point: by the time the AoL came around, there was no memory or even concept of War, tools as weapons, etc. They had a sport called "swords" and it needed modification to be used to kill. This strongly suggests that the world experienced at least one Age (or Age & 1/2) that did not have major armed conflicts and such. Since the Wheel has so many Biblical parallels (forbidden & guarded gardens, innocence & longevity & peace torn by over-reaching for power...), I assume that the "First Age" is one of pure peace that laid the foundation for the knowledge discovered in the AoL. Just think about it - it would sadly take a *really long time* for us humans to forget about killing each other in big numbers.

What's more, looking at the entire Age concept, it's entirely plausible that 2 or more Ages are taken up with nothing but evolution. So the 6th and 7th Ages before "our" turn of the wheel may have been nothing but evolution, followed by a 2nd Age in which humankind found violence. I think there's no set length for an Age - IIRC, they always end with a cataclysm, like the Breaking or "The Last Battle." I imagine the Alvarez Hypothesis fits there too, so we can add dinosaur-killing meteorites to the list of Age-killers.

I always assumed that channeling is something intrinsic to people that they either might or might not discover in any given Age/Cycle of Ages. Is your theory on Finn and Ogier there to support why there was no (known) channeling in "our" Age? 'cause I'd definitely like to see your ideas considered heavily, even if they're not the reason us Americans and Moscovites got to live Balefire free.

Also, I think you're wrong in your analysis of Min's visions of channelers. I think that channelers have a lot of auras, not because their channeling is disruptive to the pattern, but because channelers are literally plugged into the pattern. More importantly, they do much more than the average WoT person, and face many possible futures (turned by BA, captured by FS, burnt out by terangreal, getting another Warder). AS and Ashaman have all the same possibilities as other folks, and possibilities only available to those with the Power. Normal people in WoT buy horses and farm or run taverns or own lands - they have a lot less important moments and many less possibilities than the OP-capable.

Finally, there's nothing really connects the Horn of Valere or the Portal Stones to the 'Finn. The only evidence in favor for the Horn is its Old Tongue inscription and magical powers; yet the Horn's supposed to be from an earlier Age altogether. The Portal Stones allow travel between Worlds and Time, but that's the only link to the 'Finn and their Tower...

I very much like your out-of-the-box thinking here, though. It's nifty, and I like the idea that these oddly-connected worlds and dimensions are things that "strain" the pattern. It's great to consider the concept that these extra-dimensional objects are problems that must be resolved - or rubble that must be cleared - to win TG. It *does* make sense that a major inter-dimensional event occurs when the Ages end - the DO sealed or nearly-freed, etc. And it does make sense that maybe this *entire* cycle of the Dark One assaulting the real world is one made possible by all this impossible "rubble" that links the world to "other places."

I would say that Mat may definitely do something with the 'Finn - something that might see them leaving the world alone for a few Ages. Still, I can't see Perrin - or even Rand - doing much about Portal Stones. They resist being moved at all, even by the Power. I don't know that anyone will have the strength or time to do anything about them with TG coming.

Still, I always assumed the Stones will prolly remain as a good (but exhausting) way for the Shadow to move fleets of Shadowspawn around (assuming Rand's "Ways Destruction Plan" works).

I don't know how much more I can say without checking out other sources for a spell...