That's why the pike has to be cheap so you can easily discard and pull out your sidearm. He'll only get that close to you if you're fighting him 1v1. If you've got allies and you're fighting as a pikeman should instead of slapping people with your über disco stick it'll work. As said before, the pike will suck 1v1, but why shouldn't it? The pike is meant to support not to dominate and counter every single class and scenario thrown at it.
1: This would make the pike not a primary weapon. I would no longer be a pikeman, I'd be some guy with a trash stick and a 1 slot sidearm.
2: This would mean pikes would be completely useless unless you're in a VERY team-play oriented clan with at least 7+ people online. I wouldn't call that something that "peasants" could use.
3. Pike already sucks 1v1. Downblock, wait for the thrust, hit them back, downblock. They literally cannot do anything to you if you just repeat this. They will HAVE to draw their sidearm or die. Helicopter stabbing does not magically make downblock useless, so hold that damn RMB. The only time people die to a Pike 1v1 is because they got overconfident, they don't understand the fundamentals of fighting a pikeman, or they were retarded.
4. Maybe you've never played as a pikeman, but we're the primary targets of any decent players. Already players are able to quite easily rush past our allies to start beating on us, if this change was made this would lead to instant pikeman death. Pikemen HAVE to be able to block, and do so well, or they will not last long.
I played something like 5 gens before I started using the Pike. My ability to block was garbage until then. Within a couple weeks of using the Pike, I was successfully blocking at least twice as many hits. Blocking is fundamentally important to a pikeman's role in c-rpg.
Is it realistic? Hell no. But then, this is a game. Did real fighters only have 4 possible attacks, which could be perfectly blocked by 4 different blocks? In a real fight could someone simply hold their sword down and then run straight into a pike without taking damage? In a real fight can people swing and run endlessly without getting tired? In a real fight can a horse or man get mortally wounded but keep running around just fine? In a real fight do you have a health bar, at the end of which you die, instantly? In a real fight can you accidentally swing full force into a rock without your weapon taking any damage? In a real fight are people more concerned about kill whoring than winning or surviving? Etc, etc, etc.
Why is it that the Pike is the one melee weapon that people constantly try and make "more realistic"? (i.e. nerf into the ground) Just leave the damn thing alone. Already there are only a handful of pikemen who are even slightly competent with it after all the nerfing it's recieved.
tl;dr: DON'T TOUCH MAH PIKE!!!