I've read a bunch, and aMoL was both overdone, and bland. It's bad WoT AND bad mil-fic.
Yeah, now that you guys mention it, I remember thinking "so what?" at that part. I had, in times past, questioned the importance of the White Tower unification storyline in the general scheme of things, since all they bring to the table are a small quantity of inferior channelers. I was thus very aware of the rough numbers of channelers united under the light. I was power-reading through it though, and filed under things to puzzle out later, but didn't pay much attention, because, again, the character stuff has always been more interesting.
I don't know why "River of Souls" was left out. I think they could have tweaked that story some more to eliminate the obvious clues to Bao's true identity, and build up suspense for the revelation.

They could have played up the Sharan stuff to make you wonder if they were going to be a problem Rand would have to overcome to win their allegiance, or ride to the rescue at the last moment or whatever, and then, Oh crap! They're bad and that's actually Demandred! So THAT'S where he's been!

Thom to Elayne on the raker from Tear to Tanchico. "The two armies just stood there while one of the generals - a king - fought a hundred duels?... There isn't enough time to fight a hundred duels between sunrise and sunset, girl."
I always thought the super-gateway Talent sounded too much like a fan-fiction creation, not to mention too derivative of the Kinswoman who was really weak but had a shielding Talent that could hold one of the Forsaken.
That's so disappointing. I thought that more of this stuff was RJ's idea, if only B-Sand's execution. I'm actually kind of miffed that he had the temerity to invent his own characters, like Androl, beyond the tiresome fan cameos. The obviously warped real world names were bad enough with Betse the waitress from LoC or Charlz Guybon in KoD. The sheer number of them in there was (contrary to Leigh Butler's assertions)NOT something you overlook. Every time a stupid made-up-by-Sanderson name appeared, it jolted me out of the story, and finding out that these are all shoutouts to intrusive fans only makes it more annoying. Maybe anonymous Maiden #2 could have been Adelin, who disappeared after the dolls incident, despite being one of the more significant Maidens before that, instead of being a cutesy shout-out to an intrusive fan. The people who are invested in the story and could actually remember these sorts of details are cheated to satisfy ONE fan, who happens to have met Sanderson.