Just Finished Reading Robert Jordan's Knife of Dreams

After reading the tenth book in fantasy writer Robert Jordan's expansive The Wheel of Time series, I began to wonder whether or not the author was truly interested in reaching a final resolution, as he kept introducing new minor characters to the epic and obscuring the main story line with numerous subplots.  But with this, his eleventh book, titled Knife of Dreams, I can start to see some light at the end of this tortuously long and convoluted reading experience.  The main protagonist, a young man named Rand al'Thor, is the reincarnation of an ancient hero who had defeated and imprisoned the supremely evil Dark One...now Rand has the title of Dragon Reborn, and the prophecies strongly point to his fateful rematch with his nefarious adversary in the Last Battle...we've known about this fact since very early in the series.  In the meantime, though, Rand has been crisscrossing the land, alternately making alliances and war, much as have done his friends Mat, Perrin, and associated supporting characters like Egwene, Nynaeve, Elayne, Min, and Loial, to name a few of the most important.  There are all these various kingdoms and movements around, most of them at complete odds with one another, and Rand seems to be saddled with a thoroughly hopeless cause trying to unite them together under his leadership.  But some of the main story threads have attained some resolution in Knife of Dreams, especially regarding the main characters.  This gives me hope for the future books in this series!  Only one problem, though...

Robert Jordan died after the publication of Knife of Dreams.  In order to continue and ultimately complete the Wheel of Time series, his extensive notes outlining what he wanted to do for the final book(s) were collected and examined, and esteemed fellow fantasy fiction writer Brandon Sanderson was hired to complete the series.  This he did in three books, making the final The Wheel of Time series a rather unwieldy fourteen volumes.  It will be very interesting to see how Sanderson manages to tie so many divergent tales together...I sincerely hope he doesn't introduce many more insignificant characters or irrelevant side stories as did the original author...