I really enjoyed the second trilogy, I didn't like the Alloy of Law (the first in the Wax and Wayne books) but Shadows of Self and Bands of Mourning are both excellent. I think I enjoyed it a lot mainly because of the humor in the books. Wayne is a hilarious character overall and that really shines through in books 2 and 3 of the second trillogy.
Wheel of time takes a lot of effort to read once you get to book 7. So much so that I had to get an audiobook and let someone else read it to me. Once you survive book 7 things start to pick back up and not be so mind numbingly boring. Book 6/7 had a horrible dull period where it just stretched too thin on story.
I have not read Erickson's books, I've heard of them before though and I think I even went so far as to pick one up from the library, but never really dug into it. Might loop back to them later.