Personally, I prefer the first edition covers.

Just me.

The new ones are great too.

I think we are all forgetting the most important part of the book, in my humble opinion. Chapter 39, pg. 812, "YOU CANNOT WIN UNLESS WE GIVE UP." His list of all the people who still fought, allof those threads to the pattern were essential to the fight. Lose almost any of them, and the war could have been lost. Every person had a role, Thom, Moraine, Egwene, Mat, Perrin, Nynaeve, Min, Elayne, Aviendha, Lan, Gawyn, Androl, Pevara. Notice how my list gradually went to "lesser" characters? Who would deny, that if any did differently the result would have been drastically worse?