I think the cast had known for a long time and were just not allowed to say anything until the press release. Most of them would have gotten over their shock a long time ago.

I agree with you, at least for the first season. The plot is fairly straightforward and could have been easily streamlined while only making small cuts and changes While there were obvious large changes to the characters that I didn't agree with I think one of the main things that derailed the series was making the Aes Sedai such a huge component of the season. In the series the Aes sedai start off as this mysterious organisation that is not fully trusted. It is not until the girls go to train we meet them to a greater extent and We realise how out of touch ad self centred most of them are.

This really depends on where you live. In many places this is very common and noone bats an eye at a two year age difference.

I think they should have started with a brief telling of the history of the breaking via voiceover and some random scenes. Explain the drilling of the bore, the war of power, The 100 companions sealing the bore and the backlash of the taint then Lews madness and the breaking caused by the men. It doesn't need to be long or detailed but it would give enough background to aid the audience in understand what is happening.

Morgase is one character which I really disliked in the show. Her personality is completely changed and not for the better. The show made her seem like a tyrant and this was before Rahvin was effecting her in any way. Yes she fought in the Succession war and won but having the other noble families kill their own house heads was just not needed. It was just done for shock value on the show and nothing else. In the books Morgase is described as a kind and good leader until she becomes compelled by a forsaken.

I don't think anyone, including myself, expect or even really want a 100% word for word adaption. Of course things need to be cut but they can do so and still follow the books a lot better than the show did. A lot of fluff that was really not relevant to the story was added to the show and it really didn't help to condense it in any meaningful way. Many things were changed for reasons other than condensing the story.

I hope this opens up the possibility of an animated series in a few years that is more book accurate.

My main issue with Rand chasing the kid was that he did not respectfully greet the Roofmistress and participate in the ritual of asking to enter her hold/house etc. It seemed very disrespectful to the culture and insulting to the Roofmistress. If they had had a scene with him playing with the kids after he had performed the ritual it would not have seemed so out of place.

Did anyone else find a large portion of this episode so dark that they couldn't really see what was happening on screen?

Yeah I don't quite get it - you don't even need that many extras - crowds can be quite easily made using CGI etc when you only have a few extras. Overall though this season has definitely been an improvement from the previous two.

While I really enjoyed this episode I feel they missed out on the scale of the Aiel in the visions. There should have been huge camps of Aiel moving around - but it seemed that there was only a handful of people travelling with the Tree of Life. In the vision after the Tuatha'an left there seemed to only be the grandfather and grandson and noone else which was strange. There should have been a huge number of Jenn Aiel which dwindled over time so the size of the camp should increase as they go back in time, not decrease.