Surely the point of reducing her strength is to bring her down to a level of humility or vulnerability where she cannot use her superior strength as her automatic advantage over everyone else.

In my view, the only purpose of reducing Lanfear in strength would be to make her weaker than some of the other female Forsaken. Else it serves no purpose.


Exactly, she has been slightly lowered in overall strength; however, it isn't necessarily to put female forsaken above her in the power. Instead, I think it was for a couple of other reasons:

1) I think it is to put Lanfear above Cyndane in strength...that alone would piss her off to no end- afterall, if you were a perfectionist, like Lanfear, that was one of the two people responsible for unleashing the dark one on the world and you could no longer live up to your former self wouldn't you be pissed off??
2) Now, Lanfere, who was rivaled by no one in her own age and time, is second to some former damane, who is one of the second-rate 3rd age channelers that she loathes so much (not saying that Shai'tan did this intentionally....but then again, knowing the forsaken how he does, maybe he did).
3) We know that she was severed/stilled when she fell through the ter'angreal doorframe, with Moraine, to the Aelfinn's homeland. We know of several women in the series, including Leane, Siuan, and the Aes Sedai from Dumai Well that have been severed. Of these, Leane and Siuan are significantly weaker, because they were healed imperfectly by a female- we know it is imperfect because the other Aes Sedai were healed by a man, and appear to be at their original strength. This last point is my contention though: do we know they are at their original strength, or are they just very close to their original strength (so compared to Leane and Siuan there is no discussion needed about their new strength levels).