In reading the various points of view expressed and upon having had a few weeks to digest the series I find
1. I still enjoyed the journey and the sights I was shown as I usually do in a Wolfe novel.
2. I agree with most of alga's points in her last post and if those loose ends had been tied up I would rate this series as one of the best 5 I've ever read instead of just rating it "good."
I find I have no desire to reread this series (I've read OBW twice, IGJ twice and RttW once) because I have no faith that I would find more answers. Where as I have read TBOTNS three times and am itching for a fourth. Heck! I think I would probably even rather retackle Castleview, the most confusing Wolfe novel I've read yet (3 times and still lost), than try to dig out answers to this series.
Now for those that love frustration I just finished Jonathan Carroll's "The Wooden Sea" and before that read "The Marriage of Sticks." He seems to have caught Wolfe disease (grin). I understood very little and saw a lot of the same tricks. Devices thrown in and made to seem very important and never explained, but once again I enjoyed the characters and the journey even if I don't know where I went.
Dennis/Endy
http://home.mindspring.com/~endymion9/index.htm
*This is WHORL, for discussion of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun.