Sparks

Love the Shardcast!  Listening to it, I can't help but compare the relationship between Radiants and their spren and Adolin with Maya.  Specifically, the Radiants tend to be broken people for which their spren and the bond/relationship to their spren are positive, healing influences in their lives that further the emotional health and development of their human partners.

In contrast, Adolin is the closest we see to a human spren.  If there was a spren of nurturing and loyalty I imagine it would look and sound a lot like Adolin!   But maybe that's why Adolin and Maya work, and why they're so unique.  Maya is maybe the broken one in the relationship - and to regain her former health and potential, she needs a spren of her own.

A spren named Adolin.

*cries for the Rithmatist sequel*

So, multiple things...

I agree with the majority of the views in the podcast that Adolin is in a much better place, maturity-wise and emotionally, to provide support and understanding for Shallan as she is learning to integrate her multiple personalities in her psyche, for lack of a better way to put it.  The huge red flag for me was in Shadesmar when Kaladin was like "YES! I could create a whole new Me like you, Shallan, and hide away from all my problems!" and Shallan was cringing and thinking inside "umm....sure....it sucks and it's tearing me apart and I need to fix it" and Kaladin is completely oblivious to this. Shallan opens up a bit with both Kaladin and Adolin over the course of the 3 books and they react in completely different ways to that revelation in their relation to Shallan.    

For whoever said, "Why didn't Radiant choose Adolin at the end?" It's because of who Radiant is.  Radiant likes Adolin but agrees to go along with Veil because "there are definite advantages to two Knights Radiant getting together".  If Veil is the approximate id, the transgressive side of Shallan, Radiant is the superego of Shallan, the part that would be more than ready to submerge her feelings for Adolin for a "better pairing" with Kaladin's new status.

As someone who has watched way too many romantic movies on dates, I agree that Shallan/Kaladin is far and away delving into boring cliche Nicholas Sparks territory, from the girl-boy meet-cute to the I-hate-you now I-can't-stop-thinking-about-you to the forced companionship in the chasms and the inevitable soul barings.  While Sanderson does have a string of arranged marriage successes, like you guys said, Dalinar/Evi and Gavilar/Navani definitely show the other side of what happens with not-so-rosy arranged marriages. And if someone is really anti-arranged marriage, Sebarial/Palona is definitely the Sanderson example that worked out really well.

With all that, I don't think Kaladin/Shallan is necessarily done, either.  Until Shallan truly resolves Veil/Shallan/Radiant, Veil (and really, Shallan deep down) is going to crush on Kaladin, no matter how much she stuffs it into a deep dark hole or whether or not she stays faithful to Adolin.  (I could see a Guinevere/Arthur/Lancelot thing developing later down the road.)  And, to pull an example from Dalinar and Navani's marriage to Gavilar, Kaladin can "give up" on Shallan and accept her relationship with Adolin without the attraction going away, either.

The relationship I really was sad over in Oathbringer was not any part of the Triangle; it was Dalinar/Evi.  I feel like present day-Dalinar and Evi would have been an amazing pair, and all of Evi's advice and nurturing for Dalinar turned out to be spot on. It was just the right relationship at the wrong time for Dalinar, and watching it develop to its abrupt end through the flashbacks in Oathbringer killed me.  I forgive you, at the last, was the bittersweet knife twisting.  Without Evi, Dalinar could never have developed into the man that could become Unity, but Evi never gets to see the payoff at the end (unless you're counting her spirit/ghost).