I loved this, but geez, thank God I'm finished. :) 
 I also fully intended to come back and really review this with a really real review. Really. But I finished it two weeks ago, and I think my relief at just being DONE has overwhelmed any real need to review it. It was a good read. It was a satisfying conclusion. I can definitely see why people would be pissed with the deus ex machina, but with the entire premise of the story, it really didn't annoy me that much -- especially since I was just so relieved to be done. The entire idea in the first place was far-fetched; in some ways, I think you needed to have a deux ex machina just to tie it up, because I can't imagine any plausible way to solve the entire issue otherwise. 
 Edit: 
 It is now June 10, 2014, two years and five days after I finished this series. I never did come back to review it -- I think, after getting through it, I was so exhausted by it that I didn't have anything to say. 
 However, I do look at this series as one of the best I've read, despite how sprawling the universe is and how out of control the characters are. I've returned to it briefly a couple of times intending to re-read it, but never gotten past a couple of chapters. Someday I will return -- which is saying something -- and I'll probably bring with me a reading guide of some sort. There was just too much variation in the characters for me to be able to follow along without taking copious notes and checking a wiki with chapter changes, especially as the series got on. 
 Well worth the read, though, and oh, to be able to read it for the first time again. :)