He has a colossal set of characters and all the interesting ones have barely been developed yet - you can tell they aren't even halfway changed to what they'll end up being, and you KNOW that half of them will die along the way... As opposed to Jordan, whose base characters visibly grow and change as the series goes by, and who develop their own power bases and grow into well thought out adults (some more interesting than others).
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<br>Both suffer from the typical epic fantasy issues, though, as more and more characters are introduced the campaign grows bigger and bigger and it is difficult to keep track of what is happening until your second or third read-through. At least for me.
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<br>That being said, a good book along the line of what you suggested would be The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch, or perhaps March Upcountry, by David Weber and John Ringo (though this is more military science fiction than conventional fantasy)
