Planner here. Spent 3 years planning and 1 year writing The Golden Legacy (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QPBYGFI). The end result is a fast-moving plot, a structure that works very well and is very self-consistent (no plot holes, etc) but somewhat "flat" characters, since I emphasized structure far more than character. Lessons learned, and will be applied to the next one :)