@xyzzy sorry it took me so long to get back to you on this one. Yes, the worldbuilding is fantastic in WOT, and the first 4 books or so are a a high-fantasygasm. And that's why it hurts so much that the next 5-6 books after that become progressively more and more of a tedious slog to get through. But then Robert Jordan got his terminal cardiac amyloidosis diagnosis, and book 11 suddenly was awesome again (because he started actually progressing the story as fast as he could instead of writing like he was getting paid by the word)... and then he died before he could write the last book.
Fortunately, his widow gave all his notes to Brian Sanderson, who, as I understand it, put together a masterful ending to the series. I haven't read it myself (because by the time it came out I had forgotten all the important things that had happened over the course of the series and I'll be fucked with a spikey bat before I ever read Crossroads of Twilight again), but others I know who have said it was really good.