Style, aesthetics and ideas. It's clear that Jordan isn't meaningful literature, though, so I did mention that books that are entertainment don't really need a big idea.

The problem I have with Jordan is that it's not a joy to read it for its own sake. Aesthetically and stylistically it's a train wreck. You read it for one reason, and one reason only - the story. The problem that I then have with Jordan is that the story was good for the first six books and then just got bogged down.

You are being extremely charitable when you say that he had a grand experiment that he poorly executed. I think he was like most other writers in the genre - he had a good idea that he thought he could cash in on. He knew he needed a big climactic finish at the end of each book but at a certain point he had thrown on so much unnecessary detail that he couldn't get the pieces in the right spot, and so for book after book he just kept fiddling with things but not moving it anywhere because he knew each new piece of crap he turned out would still sell. He wanted to finish the series, of course, but he was content to release sub-par work (even for him) because he was thinking about paying his bills. I don't blame him - every author without another job has an eye to the profit angle (Dumas certainly did, to take your example).

I just don't think that he had the grand vision. He was going to write a trilogy, and it just started expanding, and at a certain point it expanded beyond his ability to generate thrilling conclusions to each book.

As for this forum, I don't even want to think about how many websites there are out there for the Twilight series. Having a forum isn't an indication of writing talent in the least. I'm also sure Dan Brown has some fansites out there (and a fair number of them probably believe that he's publishing facts as fiction to avoid being murdered by the Federal Reserve).

I've bashed WoT a bit more than it perhaps deserves at times, but I generally agree with your assessment, with the caveats listed here.