Crossroads of Twighlight is tedious, I'm thankful I got into the series late enough that I could go from one to another without a massive gap, cause that would be painful. I guess you could say this is an experiment in writing a book without the usual format... but the results clearly show there's a reason why the traditional format is used.

I've never understood why Jordan didn't space out the conclusions to his sub-plots. One or two per book in this stretch would have been nice. Say, have Perrin resolve his problems in Winters Heart. And have someone (Elayne or Mat?) wrap their stuff up in CoT.

As for the chains in the harbor, I want to say that using chains to block a harbor has been done in real life during sieges, maybe American Civil War? Why a siege is okay and an assault isn't doesn't make a ton of sense but what about the Aes Sedai does? And spoiler alert: The chains in the harbor don't really come up again in any significant way