Except the changes that were made to the show were not needed to condense the show. I'm sure it's been talked about here but most of the changes don't add any value. Making the EF5 older at the start when we already knew this show, if completed, was going to take 16 years. Perrin having and killing his wife left no room to develop him in season 1 because how do you comeback from that. Changing Mat's character and family fundamentally added nothing of value except ruin a lot of people's favorite character. The jumping off a cliff scene with Nyn and Eggy while I understand the point and imagery that time could have been better used showing the myrdral stalking the boys. The who is the DR was over played for no good reason and with that distracted from the world building and character development. Rosamund Pike is a good Moiraine but having her as the biggest actor when she isn't even in half the books was a mistake. Showing the fight at Edmods was a waste of resources and not very well done. As you said the budget and time is limited and they wasted it. You have 64 episodes to tell a story that spans 14 books new spring is a prequel so should be ignored. That's 4.5 hours a book to take the innocent kids from EF to TG. There's a lot of material that needs to be cut to achieve that goal adding original scene that are pointless (Stefin) or have a better in world scene too achieve the same thing (Perrin's frozen wife vs killing WC's after Hopper is killed). The show is full of questionable to bad decisions in the first season. They completely punted the finale, I know that covid and Mat's actor not returning were hurdles that they needed to overcome, it still shows that they lack the creativity, and understanding of the source material to make a pivot to tell a good story.