Ishmel was killed as was Lanfear, but the dark one brings them back in gender swapped bodies as a punishment for their failure. I forgot that if i mentioned his death, I would have spoiled an important plot point. I loved the wheel of time, even played the table top game. It just urks me that they could not keep the characters to their proper ages, and I understand why. Rand gets laid alot, and its kind of creepy to have teens doing the nasty, on the level of Stephen King's It. Moiraine never lost her powers, as she killed Lanfear by loading up on all the artifacts she could, powering them up and grabbing Lanfear and jumping through that arch on the wagon.
Yeah, Balefire was OP for a reason. It not only made things go poof, but anything connected to it. I think it said the last major use of it in the Last Age had cut the population down a bit. As cool as it is, the best weave Rand has is where he makes saw blades out of gates and throws them into battle. The only reason Ishmel targeted Rand, was because he knew Lews Theron Telemons spirit was in him, evidenced by the fact that he did not leave rands head after the cleansing of the male half of the source. And they both hated each other with a bloody passion.