Nice post, Ken Rauhl. It's nice to see someone willing to explain his opinion, instead of simply saying something like "This world suck". As most people usually do.
I quit reading those after the gods had left. That's the 4th age, right? From what I can see, it seem they really messed their world with the last age. Good thing I quit before getting there.
I don't agree with you about R.A. Salvatore, I think he is good when it comes to adding "morals" to his story, I really like the comments he make between chapters, and I like the characters he created, but I think they are too powerfull to give us any suspense, but this is off topic, so I won't say any more about this here.