Despite the fact that I d!dn't really have to wait for it - my library didn't have it, so I bought it in paperback (and might I add in English, switching languages). It was good, but already slower and with not that much happening - off the top of your head, can you name many important events taking place in PoD? Then Winter's Heart was the first one I bought as it came out in hardcover, that one was also disappointing in some ways, but the memorable scenes made it worth it. So then I joined the waiting... and yes, CoT was a major disappointment, that first time around.

Hm, I recall a few spectacular scenes in ToM, but you may be right that besides those there's not so much movement. Crossroads of Twilight has good passages, for sure, but most of them are fleshing out subplots or dealing with secondary characters - while the wealth of those subplots and secondary characters are one of the things that make WoT the impressive achievement and compelling read that it is (for all the flaws it may have), they work best when interspersed properly with the main plot. And in hindsight, RJ probably should have left out or condensed a few things to avoid getting books like CoT which are necessary but put people off the series.

Precisely.

I'd have to reread ToM, or both of them really, to comment on that.