What I would need to be convinced is that she was surprised that she died. We don't have that. All we have is Rand balefiring a palace.

As to other points, they indicate how many holes are in accepting your opinion at face value: 1) Wards can be placed before time all around the area just to give her some indication in case threats come (the Tower has these - I doubt a Forsaken would neglect to erect them) 2) The messenger he sent WAS a heralf of an imminent attack. I'm not sure why people keep forgetting this but Rahvin himself was sitting in his palace when Rand suddenly appeared - surprise attacks are part of his strategy 3) You still don't really confront the idea that her gameplan was to make him angry enough to come against her directly, and as soon as she saw an indication he was doing so, she would leave. I think her master plan was to make him so mad that he'd start balefiring indiscriminately, and he almost did this to the Seanchan. 4) Plus you never really address the fact that there are holes in the idea that the fading of Compulsion wasn't due to the possibility that she simply wasn't in the palace, saw what happened from another area and decided that it was best to make him think she was dead - this is not that hard to do, especially since you can Travel somewhere, and look through the gateway as a scrying glass. She very well might have been on a hill somewhere in the very advantageous mountainside overlooking her palace to see what would happen.

And my biggest complaint still remains: You are giving a lot of weight to evidence that goes against how she acts. If she was no longer willing to confront him knowing he had access to Callandor and now the Choedan Kal, why would you think she would assume he doesn't carry the access key around? She stays alive because she thinks of all possibilities and honestly, the way Rand was acting the entire book broadcast to any spy she had around that he intended to carry the access key everywhere with him.

I think so many of you are getting so caught up in the scope and magnitude of the attack that you are dismissing the major possibility that she wanted this to happen and this was to be her sign of how unbalanced she had made him. Basically, this seemed exactly like what she would want him to do to show what depths he could sink to. I think her next step was for him to do the same to the Seanchan. I'm also reminded of the scene where the Dark One asks her if she would use balefire on his behalf. This was eerily similar to that except she was prompting and poking Rand to unleash it and cause more chaos than she ever could.

Don't forget - Graendal's reputation is not just that she has a Talent for Compulsion, is great at gathering information, great at survival and possessed of strength and courage...she also used to treat people with mental conditions and help madmen with their insanity. Rand's insanity and mental condition is actually something she is familiar with manipulating.