RJ set no such stage. Moiraine, Egwene, Nynaeve, Rand... these people cover a substantial number of power levels, but show no actual difference in boldness. When Siuan lost her access to the OP completely, she was shown to be no less bold. Once she came back weaker, she was shown to be, if anything, even more bold.

RJ has his chief observer of the Aes Sedai, Egwene, voice contempt for the strength=any character trait system quite early. Moghedien is one of the first Forsaken we spend any amount of time with, and she's far stronger than the majority of the channelers we meet, but she is shown to be anything but bold. Asmodean is shown to be cowardly too, yet he too is way stronger than most we meet.

The strength-boldness correlation simply does not exist.

We don't see her fearful at all. Even after being raped by Shaidar Haran, we don't exactly see her crumple do we?

She is hiding her face from Alviarin because her Aes Sedai disguise looks like her actual self. It makes great sense to not reveal that to an underling greedy for power.

Nothing in her behavior says anything about her strength in the OP.

Swagger is not what Anaiya meant. She was specifically talking about picking a woman strong in the OP to be Amyrlin Seat, and she specifically says that the strong will that supposedly goes with strength will be a benefit to such a woman. The irony is pretty thick, because we see this from Siuan's PoV when she has no strength in the Power at all, yet she is manipulating Anaiya. RJ is subtly sniggering at Aes Sedai notions of the importance of strength.

Shemerin came later, and reinforced the point. But the point was there from the beginning.

Only in the minds of Aes Sedai and Aes Sedai trained. No Wise One is surprised that Sorilea is strong willed. Egwene brings up Sorilea and Bair and their strength of will how many times? She keeps marveling at it, but the point of that isn't to tell you strong willed women weak in the OP are rare. The point is that the Aes Sedai notion of the importance of OP strength is retarded.

No... illustration of the retardedness of the Tower! I can't believe that you took Cadsuane's statement to mean "Daigian is exceptional". She clearly derides the system that would make stronger AS ignrore Daigian's mind, and talk freely around her. She fully intends to use that to her advantage. This does not mean she endorses the AS view that weak AS are next to worthless! Nor is she saying a weak AS with a fine mind is a rarity, because Kumira is also weak, also likely to be ignored, and also brilliant.

Mesaana's motivation is no weaker than Asmodean's, or any number of others. During the WoP, her schools were considered to be hugely influential. She was one of the Shadow's prime administrators, remember?

But again... why does any of this have anything to do with OP strength?