While it is true that the books explore a lot of minutia, much of that is concerned with the decor of the setting, the clothing of the characters, etc.

I seem to remember a memorable paragraph dedicated to the unbalanced nature of Egwene's chair in her tent, and how the experiences Sitters somehow managed to keep their balance despite sitting in similar stools (or bring their own sturdier ones).

Most of the descriptions of furniture (and the clothes too) are like that. Reflecting the situation of the character, but taking too much space to do so.

I don't mind it, many others are distracted by it a lot. But, critically, I have never come across someone who likes it. No one who has said this makes the series better or more interesting.

The plot itself diverges, of course, with many secondary, even tertiary characters being given points of views. And these are what fascinate many fans (to obsessive levels), not so much because they're interesting in and of themselves, but more because of how Jordan managed to tie these disparate story elements together. Sometimes in a predictable way (where the fan is satisfied he was clever enough to see it coming), and from the left field in other cases (where many prior instances of a character's appearance can take on a newer shade of meaning).

Essentially, once you get over the pedestrian prose and the over-descriptiveness (and the obvious pacing problems, of course), this is a damned good yarn. The characters are fun, and grow enough, and are consistent enough that you don't have to periodically smack your head. The world, due to the multitude of characters from so many different walks of life, lives and breathes (allowing for easy immersion), and there is enough thematic depth that this doesn't seem like total fluff.

Had Jordan been able to control the tendency to over-describe and take care of the pacing issues in the later books, this would have been a brilliant example of "lets see how long an interesting story can I write". It still qualifies, IMO, and certainly is the reason why I think it is such a commercial success.