Actually, I think we are pretty much agreeing, though I missed the part of the 'regional meeting', good point there. We really have no clue where he excelled, or even if. All we know is that he was a very strong channeller, he outlived other very strong chanellers that were also granted access to the TP, and that he was wrapped up as a gift to Rand by Lanfear because he was fool enough to put himself in a place where she could take advantage of his weakness. Not a very stunning resume to say the least. He also does not seem to be a very good teacher or very sound in his understanding of how the OP works. Now this could just be his reluctance to actually teaching Rand, but we will never really know.