you adressed almost everything I think is wrong with the show's first season and that I also think doomed the show. But I also think that casting rosamund pike was a huge mistake in the long run because it makes rafe rewrite too much of the book story to give more action time to moiraine. And this problem propagates to several seasons while moiraine is alive. I also think that the "who is the dragon" could have worked, but they needed to eliminate the possible candidates during the season". for ex, first have moiraine give a short history lesson to the kids to explain that the dragon is a man (eliminating egg but showing she can be a powerfull aes sedai), then use an ep about the dagger and another ep about wolves to eliminate the boys while making it visible during the season that rand can use a bit of saidin.