Books 4-6 is where it bogged down for me. I actually considered quitting reading the series after The Fires of Heaven, but I felt like it picked up again around book 7.
Yes it was sprawled out more by then, but at least the plot started to move forward again. I remember doing the math and for one of the PoV characters in book 5 (Rand maybe?) it was less than 48 hours for the entire book, much of which was him worrying internally about things mostly inconsequential to the plot.
Book 4 might be the best book in the series. Perrin's return to the Two Rivers is one of my favorite episodes. And then the two Rand chapters in the Aiel ancestral history machine in Rhuidean... those were mind-blowing the first time I read them.
Yes it was sprawled out more by then, but at least the plot started to move forward again. I remember doing the math and for one of the PoV characters in book 5 (Rand maybe?) it was less than 48 hours for the entire book, much of which was him worrying internally about things mostly inconsequential to the plot.