With regard to the rescue mission, I think most people got shocked over his willingness to "deal with the Dark One" to get Faile free. He did initially consider the Seanchan as bad as the Shadow, even if readers didn't. Perrin thought that saving his wife was more important than the Last Battle and never even saw anything illogical in that!

But of course, I guess that's what Perrin is all about. He did constantly moan about wanting to be a simple blacksmith, not wanting to lead anyone, not wanting to have anything to do with the wolves, not accepting his ta'veren nature and larger role in the Pattern.. Eventually, his small-mindedness lead to such perverse outcomes as the WC trial, where Perrin again valued his own moral comfort as high as the salvation of whole mankind. Even Mat got over his initial slackerness, but for Perrin it took the whole series to man up.

For someone who can smell other people's emotions, he does show a remarkable lack of ability to step into their shoes. Aram and the Two River's folk come to mind. And his completely misguided idea that Rand or the Wise Ones were going to kill the captured Aes Sedai. His complete inability to accept that Masema was a threat to Rand and his reputation though he knew exactly how mad and dangerous the man was!

Perrin's reaction stemmed from fear and ignorance of the OP. You really think that Mat, Rand or Nynaeve would have reacted any differently? And in any case, every single wilder in the series had successfully done more things with the OP untrained than Egwene did with her fire, Nynaeve included. Egwene wasn't even a Wilder.