I think if Rand's personality and obsession were both more interesting, it would be easier to ignore. For example, what if instead of obsessively creating a list of dead women, he did the same for children? And obsessively started orphanages personally financed by him and took in all sorts of children made parent-less by his wars? To me, that would be an interesting by-product of his mental instability, especially since there is a benefit to the negativity. Alexander the Great did this when the older Macedonian soldiers in his army were allowed to retire - they abandoned the wives they had selected from among the camp followers and the children they had with these women in order to return to their Macedonian wives, and Alexander made all of the abandoned children his wards.

It's just not as fun reading about someone throwing a temper tantrum.