I will take a wild guess that I enjoyed e5 more than most people 😅 Costume department are great - Matt's dream wearing a mini horn round his neck made me chuckle

IMHO, I think it is for television purposes that we see "Rand" as his ancestors—likely just a way to indicate whose point of view we’re following and tying the link to Rand.

Don't recall hearing that. But when Rand's ancestor asked what was in there, she said "True Power", it sounded like "Sai-hyet" - which then dawned on me that we never had an Old Tongue word for True Power in the books.

Only touching on this on the aspect of real life beliefs, since you mention real world and I have no real interest in going into the debate about the change in reincarnation rules in the wot. While I'm now atheist, I grew up in a household with a religion that believes in the cycle of reincarnation. It actually feels more natural to me (no doubt due to indoctrinated upbringing) that reincarnation has no boundary in terms of sex or even species. I grew up with the understanding that a person can reincarnate as the opposite sex, or even animal or even a cockroach in their next life.