Tad Williams and Chapter Ending

Recently, I've found myself reading a lot of Tad Williams. I don't know how - it just happened, okay?

Anyway, I've read War of the Flowers, the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn series and am now reading Otherland. And I've just noticed one thing that really stands out and is supremely annoying.

Tad Williams is almost incapable of ending a chapter without having the protagonist faint, be knocked out, lose consciousness or experience some other event which lets him end the chapter with the words "as the darkness rushed toward him, he knew no more."

I'm in danger of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld, but what's up with that? Why does it feel like at least half the chapters of the books (after the action starts) end with this formula? Is it really so hard to leave a character to his own devices without knocking them out first so we're assured they're not doing anything behind our backs where things might happen without increasing the page count?

I've only read MST way back so I can't really say anything about that, but on a related note, I read Gregory Keyes's Briar King and he had the awful way of ending every chapter in a cliffhanger, and then when the next related POV chapter came, there was no sign of the sudden plight.

Damn but that way of writing annoyed me.