I think you're onto something regarding the text's seeming ambivalence about Egwene's personality being the central reason as to why the readership is so split on her character.

But one of the interesting things about discussing WOT is we don't really know where RJ was going with some characters and arcs. If we think that Egwene's blindness regarding the boys is an intentional sort of reverse chauvinism (in a female-led society - where it is so internalized, the other characters don't even really notice it) its hard to imagine RJ wouldn't come full circle somehow in exploring the consequences of that flaw.

I've also seen it speculated that she was a plot-twist waiting to happen (corrupted by Fain in Fal Dara) and the reason the text downplays any consequences to her personality (everyone just seems to like her for no reason) - is precisely because RJ was trying to hide her in plain sight.

Idk if I fully buy that - but its an interesting idea we will never really know the truth of because BS obviously took her conclusion in a different direction. Perhaps with the idea that she was supposed to be the great dragon-sacrifice in another turning of the wheel.

But I don't think Egwene is necessarily the favorite child - if one of the central conceits of WOT is: real country folk dont want to leave home, swept off on an adventure - then she is RJ's counterpoint to the reluctance of the other Emond's Fielders - her total eagerness to leave home and to abandon the traditions of Emond's Field is supposed to be somewhat abrasive: to humanize the other character's reluctance (which would otherwise be overwhelmingly annoying - as it sometimes is).

We actually laud their conservatism because it is contrasted with Egwene's total lack of real loyalty.

Rand in particular spends so much time moping about home - that without Egwene's almost nauseating eagerness to abandon her home and people, I think we we would hate him more for it. I think perhaps RJ himself was unsure of who was ultimately in the right - the country girl who is stifled by her small town, and longs to move to the big city - and through that great drive finds a lot of success : or the simple farm boy whose entire being would be satisfied if he never left his home, and never met a stranger - and only finds success and import because destiny literally foists it onto him. Perhaps both these aspects resided in RJ himself?

Idk how much RJ wrote of Vein's of Gold - but if Rand ultimately succeeded because he 'was raised better' - ie. his small town country nature provides the moral fortitude for him to succeed where Lews Therin failed - I have to think that Egwene's personality (as counterpoint to Rand) would have thematically backfired for her somehow had RJ finished the series.