The problem with PoP is it's sandwiched between GoD and Luclin which were both expansions with a lot of shit to do. There's some random stuff you can do in PoP besides farming Time, but it's just pretty shallow compared to those 2 expansions.
GoD might be my favorite TLP expansion at least through SoD which is where Phinny was before Selo stoled me. I suspect I'd have really enjoyed UF as well, but still GoD is amazing.
Hoops HoF is definitely not the same as the NFL or MLB. NFL is kind of the polar extreme to basketball when it comes to people getting in. You have amazing players that end up having to get in through the back door of the vet committee while in the NBA you have a whole bunch of good but not...
the problem is there's plenty of good moments in those books, it's just that the nynaeve/elayne stuff and the perrin/faille stuff in particular took like 1/3 of a book for more than 1 book instead of just being a handful of chapters. there just needed to be some better editing to consolidate...
I don't hate Eddings, but it's totally intro level fantasy and all of his characters are essentially trope archetypes dialed to 11. In fairness he wrote a lot of his stuff in the 80s before fantasy was nearly as popular as it became later so it didn't feel as blatant at the time especially as a...
I kind of feel like the series ended up being about the right number of books, but 7-10 needed pruning and the sanderson books needed expanding. The Perrin/Faile, and the Nynaeve/Elayne stuff in particular were, way, way too long.