Both things are true. The Creator bound the Dark one at the moment of creation. He also was bound by The Dragon in the more recent distant past. But how can these both be true? I don't think it's a spoiler to undertake the most basic leap of logic and say that if someone or something was imprisoned and then imprisoned again... it must have escaped at some point. The spoilers are in the details.

A couple of thoughts; When we have PoV chapters of the Wonder Girls in the White Tower, they are basically told that they are being groomed to manage the world. "Even Kings and Queens bow to the Amyrlin Seat." They're just, like you said, kind of bad at it; the Sea Folk and Aiel have managed to play on their Wetlander/shorebound biases to convince them that they are just "savages" that there is no need to engage with. Shara is really just impractically far and locked-off, not a lot to be done there; nobody in Randland is interacting with them meaningfully, not even the Sea Folk or Aiel who are the conduit through which that interaction would happen, and who are (as mentioned) dismissed. As far as Seanchan, maybe a Brown here or there knows that one of Hawkwing's sons sailed off into endless ocean and never came back, what is to be done there? (It does kind of stretch credulity that the Seanchan, or none of their political opponents in the 900-year-long series of wars that led to their hegemony over the continent, ever contacted Randland proper in an entire millennia, as they were clearly aware it was still there and it was clearly not a huge technical challenge to do so with trained damane.) I think the big thing they lean on as advisors kind of does require channeling; to me, it feels like an essential part of the value proposition for a temporal ruler. Rulers are not people in the regular habit of ceding authority. What do they get in exchange for an Aes Sedai "advisor"? In actual history the main value proposition is legitimacy, as an advisor from the Vatican (the clear parallel here) is a sign that your rule is blessed and supported by the Almighty and His representatives on earth. I don't know if the White Tower really has that valence for the average person in the same way. So what does the ruler get? Well, if your kid falls off a horse, your line no longer is ending. If there is an assassin about to harm you and your whole party, your advisor feels in danger of her life and the assassin now has to contend with magic. To me it's no surprise that the place that clearly most consistently has advisors is the Borderlands, as the gloves are always off when it comes to the DO's creatures and that is a major occupational hazard up there. The other big thing isn't really channeling itself so much as the oaths, which were intended by Ishy to shorten their lifespans, restrict their power, and create the illusion of safety that lets the Black flourish; but does end up providing value. What historical leader would not have jumped through anything to have access to an advisor that physically cannot lie? (the problems with that sentence are explored thoroughly in the text itself so let's leave it there). The more I sit in this thread the more I disagree with my first post when it comes to Reds. They're done dirty by the narrative to some degree, and I think anyone who's worked IT can identify with the "if you do your job right, everyone thinks you're slacking off." False Dragons are relatively rare (until the Pattern decided it's time and popped out 2 of them at once), but it's textually not uncommon for a random shopkeeper's son to start having funny things happen around him, only for a fine lady in a red silken dress to show up and take him away for a bit. It happens to people connected with multiple characters, not least of which is poor Thom. Ironically enough, the designated antagonist (as @HeavyHalfMoonBlade points out) for the Tower sections.. are, to some degree, the only Ajah actually doing their damn job. All that said it's believable! I think, like @Samt says it's a great example of "managed decline." It's one of Jordan's complicated, believable characters but it's an institution. And it does have an institutional redemption arc!

Hurin and Julian meeting:

That is good to know, but I do think the first quote from KingK stands and the broad strokes of my argument stand as well. If I make steel and slag comes out too, I have still "created" the slag. That's not a perfect metaphor here, though, as we're talking about someone messing around with the Ancient Evil and not just materials science. I would like to to correct my statement to say that they were created by the Dark One, working through the actions of Aginor, who was creating the Trollocs... explicitly as living weapons. The Dark One rarely shares all of his power, plans, or processes even with his Chosen. I think it's pretty clear to a reader that the answer to Aginor's questions is "the True Power," which he can't access and ties them directly to the DO. When he has an intermediate step to touch the world as the seals weaken, it's through a Myrrdraal. With that clarified--they remain fundamentally evil, do not have any actual agency and remain, at their core, completely incomparable to humans like the Aiel. Distinction without a difference.

These are both accurate to some extent, but let's be real they are not winning even the games they do play. The Green Ajah in particular is memed on for being the "battle ajah" but mostly hanging around the Tower having warder "parties." The blight is right there! Borderlanders are dealing with Trolloc raids on the daily. How is there not a Green Ajah quick response team? Why aren't they out there? The Greys are such master diplomats and the Blues such master schemers that the world is constantly at war and more than half of the established states have had a civil war-level succession crisis within living memory (Andor, Cairhein) or are functionally failed states (Altara, Ghealadan) or are completely controlled by insane religious fanatics that can and do regularly kill their members (Amadacia). (How has the White Tower just never really done anything about the Whitecloaks? They dramatically overextend in the Whitecloak war and the best the Tower could wrangle together, even with Tam al'Thor in his prime fighting for the Companions, was a return to status quo ante bellum? How are Whitecloaks not banned from any region where there is a Tower advisor?) The Yellows are so great at treating disease that they never once are shown to leave the tower to ever do so, the Reds are so good at catching men who can channel that the world is lousy with False Dragons, to the point where there's a retired legendary Green on standby who has to handle Taim (I'm on a roll but I do want to say, on the flipside, one could argue the Reds were unironically so good at catching men who could channel they eugenics-ed the spark out of the Randland population and the Tower's numbers were dwindling until the Pattern decided they needed some help (you could also argue the Salidar opening of the book shows how it was more accurately a downward spiral of the Tower turning inwards meaning they have fewer people looking meaning they have fewer Novices meaning they have fewer members meaning they turn more inwards)). The Whites and Browns get completely embarrassed scholastically by the first time an literal farmboy invests twenty four dollars and change into throwing together two "universities." They are not good at their jobs! They are not even rising to the challenges set by themselves and for themselves in the Third Age. They're not dunking on anyone; and those they do dunk on are carefully selected for their dunkability. And that's before Gitara Moroso has her Foretelling. To be clear, as I have argued vociferously in previous threads, this is not quite their fault. They're the 3,000 years distant descendants of whoever was left after an unimaginable apocalypse, 1,000 years ago a world-conquering hero tried his best to wipe them out, and they're absolutely riddled, completely run through with a secret murderous society that can lie that they refuse to acknowledge exists and that is intentionally making them bad at all these things on purpose by manipulating internal politics, by undercutting every decision, and by torturing and killing anyone who displays any actual competence in a leadership role. Still! It is by no means a stretch to point out that, by the time they officially gain the shawl, The Wonder Girls have surpassed all but a handful of modern Aes Sedai in effective use of the One Power, especially after Moggy and Lan break Nyneave's block for her. It's said outright by more than one character. What's always said to be holding them back is that they lack the Aes Sedai temperament. And what temperament would they have really have gained if they had stayed in the Tower as it was? Aes Sedai arrogance (they already had enough of that, to be honest), Aes Sedai ignorance, Aes Sedai complacency, Aes Sedai cowardice. Thematically it's a fun mixture of "don't meet your heroes," "what would Lord of the Rings be like if Gandalf was just as confused as everyone else," and RJ's ambivalent approach to institutions; dangerous and can calcify into sclerotic uselessness or outright harm, but are still necessary and worth reforming.. if only they had the right people in the right places.

These both bothered me as well, but I've got some justifications. As much as Seanchan seems like it shouldn't last a week, I think RJ both acknowledges and explains how they can remain relatively stable. Ways include: a) The social science answer: Above all else, as in many slaveholding societies, members of the slaveholding class deeply understand their class interest. Much as business owners will compete viciously to drive each other out of business but suddenly close ranks and support each other implicitly when a worker starts talking about a union, upper-class Seanchan seem to implicitly understand that upholding their central myths--the positive moral necessity of slavery chief among them--is their first and foremost survival need. And with that comes upholding the institutions that create and allow and operate the slave system, i.e. the Imperial Family and the Crystal Throne. They might kill each other for who gets to wear the boot, but questioning the boot is immediate cause for a real nasty execution. You can see this even in actual darkfriends. b) The fantasy universe answer: The Crystal Throne is a ter'angreal that does some kind of mind control. You'll notice that all of the murder and scheming amongst Tuon's siblings is over the heir. The Empress herself is also clearly the target of schemes and rebellions, but less so from those with the access to do real harm. It's something like an Ottoman situation where yeah, the harem is a never-ending viper's pit of schemes and child murder, but hey at least the Sultan is secure in his power and the provinces are run in a relatively consistent way by the enslaved managerial-soldier class (Jannisaries/deathwatch guards). c) The lateral thinking answer: Seanchan isn't actually all that stable! The Return is made up of hardened, veteran soldiers from an Empire that's been unified for centuries. Those things can't both be true... unless, as is text canon, the army is constantly putting down violent rebellions and uprisings against the status quo. I don't have an exact quote for this but I'm pretty sure it's established that damane have experience fighting other damane, which means we're not just talking slave revolts but members of the nobility, with sul'dam in tow, rising up against the Throne. The last nail in the coffin here is that Semirhage assassinating the Empress after preparing the ground for no more than a few years is able to completely throw it into chaos. To be clear, there is nowhere in Randland targeted by a Forsaken that does any better by any means, but that Seanchan does not do better does say something. When it comes to the Aiel, it's a lot tougher. Two thoughts here: a) The social science answer: Their population density is low, but the waste is very big. It's nearly as big as the rest of Randland put together. When the Aiel are on the move in the books, it's basically every single living member of their society not too young or too old to leave the holds (which again skews the numbers because everyone who fits that description is ready to pick up a spear and fight). If you put everyone matching that description in Randland in one place, you'd probably have much larger numbers, but that never happens. This is complemented with: b) The fantasy universe answer: This is pushing conjecture, but everyday Aiel life is way more actively integrated with channeling than wetlander life is. Imagine if Aes Sedai were actively involved in irrigation, mining, and industry--there's an incredible amount that would be accomplished. That level of involvement lets the Aiel survive in numbers in an environment real life humans could not, as they have someone to heal deadly wounds with magic or find and productively employ the tiniest trickle of water with magic or know where to find animals to hunt with magic or exploit the tiniest veins of ore without digging a huge open-pit mine to look. With magic! It's really clear that Aiel as a society spend very little time on agriculture relative to what they should, or what Wetlanders are shown to; either RJ really didn't think this through (more likely let's be real, they're Fremen like you said) or the Wise Ones advantage means they can achieve bonkers yields with very little work. There's also a level of how the whole gai'shan tradition means that, like a lot of clan-based warring societies in North America or sub Saharan Africa, you have a lot of wars but not a huge amount of death, and the Wise Ones again mean that these wars can be ended when they risk getting out of hand by wizard-politicians who can negotiate over any distance or disputed territory in their dreams.