Rather than a war of conquest and destruction.

The tension would have been more tangible if you could see the Shadow capturing a specific number of nations, overrunning designated capital cities, holding half or two thirds of the physical territory on the continent, having so many thouands of evil channelers etc.

Essentially, a story centered around the War of Power, or the Trolloc Wars would have been more immediately terrifying than one where the Shadow is subtly weakening the Pattern, or whatever their current strategy really is.

In such a series, the overlord of the Shadow would have been someone in the vein of Demandred. Just like he was only a hairsbreadth from being the overlord of the Light in the War of Power.

Seeing city after city fall to the Shadow, seeing men women and children being fed to the Trollocs in their thousands, seeing evil monstrosities being created by Aginor, seeing hordes of Mesaana's children running amok, seeing the Hall of Servants razed to the ground - that would have been a tension filled tale -culminating in a desperate strike by the hero to seal the Dark One's prison again in a last ditch attempt to save the world.

This current conflict has very little of that. Instead, it focuses on the state of mind of the hero, and the subtle spread of chaos through the mad, seemingly senseless plans of the Nae blis.

I think RJ's Wheel of Time series would have been more enthralling if it covered the War of Power than it is while covering the adventures of a group of teenagers running around trying to fight an invisible enemy while at the same time trying to remember laughter and tears.

And in a nutshell, the two opposites can be summarized as the Moridin vs Demandred model of villainy.