Until he took over, Rand was basically continuously loosing his sanity in the pursuit of power, which he needed to fight the dark one, which brought him closer to the madness, feeding the cycle.
It kept getting more urgent, things kept escalating. But Sandersons Rand never really lost control, imo. Rand's success felt preordained by his story telling, whereas previously the only thing we could expect was that Rand would go down fighting.
To be clear, I'm aware that Sanderson finished the story via Jordan's notes. But I strongly suspect he wouldn't have kept to them if he wrote it himself. I base that opinion on the fact that the series was supposed to be way shorter. I don't remember the exact number, but it was something like 6 books
>We did this already and everyone hated it!
Because they rushed it in a way that made no logical sense.
People say this often, and I don't get it. Sanderson is a terrible writer and his works and themes are nothing like ASOIAF. His only merit he has is "finishes books quickly". He's not even a fan of the books, he says they're "too dark" for him. He's the worst possible choice!
But I don't want anyone to finish ASOIAF if George dies before it's over. It's his story and no one else can do it right. We did this already and everyone hated it!