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I've read The Deed of Paksenarrion (of which Sheepfarmer's Daughter is the first volume) and really enjoyed it. I'd agree that the character development is pretty much non-existent in the first couple of chapters, but that changes drastically as the story progresses -- you wouldn't even know it was the same character by the third book.
Paks starts out as pretty much an idealistic and a somewhat naive character, and Moon lets her go through some tough things before that starts to crack. Eventually the whole character is broken down to component parts and rebuilt from the ground up. I'd suggest you consider going back and giving it, oh, half the the first book before you give up on it completely. That should be well more than enough to hook you if it's going to. It does start slowly, and focuses mostly on action at the beginning, but I think it settles down to a better mix a bit farther on, and I found it a very satisfying read. I've bought two paper copies so far (gave one away), and I'll purchase the trilogy again from Baen as an e-book when I get ready to re-read it next time.
However, don't bother with the second trilogy, The Legacy of Gird, which is set much earlier. It mostly tries to explain some of the back-story for Deed, and, while it was more entertaining than The Silmarillion, I still didn't like it nearly as much.
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