WoT is...long. too long. about 5 books too long.
The book would have made a good 4 or six part series, but around book 5 or 6 i started to lose interest, and began skimming. I didn't care about all the side characters, and was losing interest in the major ones.
Part of the reason for my losing interest was also that i probably got sick of waiting for the 'next book' to arrive, and by the time it had i was too foggy on the increasingly convoluted plot and who was alive, who was dead, and who had come back to life to jump back in. Since he's nearly done and there's like 12 or so books waiting for you, you may not have this issue.
HP is fine for a bit of fantasy fluff, but the magic in it kinda irritates me. also, teen drama
Sword of truth is sufferring the same issues that WoT is, although it's compunded by goodkind only knowing one plot and just rehashing it. the first three books are alright though.
If you want some books with an interesting writing style, and a pragmatic look at magic, check out the recluce series by L.E Modessitt Jr. Magic of Recluce is one of my all-time favourite reads. He manages to make woodcrafting more interesting than magic in many high fantasy series i've read.
The Immortal Prince by Jennifer Fallon is also an excellent read, great character-driven high fantasy. I dare you not to love Cayal. He's Mat Cauthon times a billion.
The Rhapsody Trilogy by elizabeth haydon is a nice bit of romantic high fantasy fluff, although not to everyone's tastes. this is a rainy weekend series. Also good if you've got romance blues.
The other series i'm really enjoying, of which there is fiour books now is by Barb and J.C Hendee. the series doesn't have an overall title, but the first book is called Dhampir. The series starts out as what you think will be a pretty standard fantasy/horror vampire hunter story, sortof a cross between buffy and old school fantasy, but the buildup of the overall plot is really nice and slow, with minimal exposition, the pacing for the stories is just superb, and i'm really enjoying the slow reveal of this world and it's characters. Chech out this series.
the only real benifit of reading HP and WoT is the water-cooler conversation, because everyone else you know has read them. They're okay stories, but there's lots of other stuff out there too.
hope you find something of interest in this selection.