Those novels started what is commonly known as the PloD - Plotline of Doom. Because it drug out for SOOOOOO long.

Jordan really got carried away.

If you started the series but stopped in that area, I highly recommend just reading the wikipedia entries for what happened in ACoS, the Path of Daggers, and Winter's Heart. You could even do the same for Crossroads of Twilight. Then start actually reading again with Knife of Dreams (the last one written solely by Jordan), the Gathering Storm (first one with Sanderson writing based on Jordan's notes), Towers of Midnight, and finally a Memory of Light.