Ok, so I'm going to put myself out on a limb here and admit that I am a very harsh judge of characters in books, particularly females. A lot of them annoy the ever-loving crap out of me. Maybe it's because I always got along better with men irl? I just can't stand some of the mind-game crap they play and the waffling that goes on in their heads. Kahlan is one of them...annoys me! But I do like Richard. I'm only on book 3 so I really don't have an opinion of the series overall.
Female characters I like:
Nynaeve - WoT
Arya - ASOIAF
Brienne - ASOIAF
Morgana - Mists of Avalon
Katniss Everdeen - Hunger Games - this is debatable since she does some "waffling" over mens
Lessa - Dragonriders of Pern
And yes I can see how SoT is very similar to WoT
I don't think so. For the above list and the characters I know, we seem to like the same ones. I also liked Hermione in the HP series. WOT...many, many, many ladies, if not most get on my damn nerves. My least favorite is Faile...ugh...I cannot. stand.Faile. I just feel like juming over the chapters she's in, but that would defeat the purpose of reading the books.