Realism arguements in balance discussion...tastes like pointless. This being a video game and all, one which requires BALANCE, not realism. Of course, I think that realism and historical accuracy aren't without worth. They help the game be immersive and give my history major self a boner.
There is no reason why a weapon should function in any specific way, except for realism. Balance can be achieved in an infinite number of ways, all arbitrary, except for the realistic way.
Also, there are ways to make some contexts of the game realistic, and others fair/balanced to ensure entertainment. The actual combat physics should be as realistic as possible, all "imbalance" compensated for by gold costs and such. Reality is already balanced; every build has its weaknesses/costs.
Realism worsens some games and enhances others. Mount and Blade was created with realistic (moreso than other games) medieval combat in mind; in general the game will benefit from a trajectory of increasing realism. Crpg has not deviated far from the core experience of m&b and has even increased realism in many areas.
Forcing all playstyles or weapon forms to be "balanced" is like going into CoD and demanding that there be an unarmed class that can take super-monk skills and power fists to compensate for the imbalance. You have to distort reality to forcefit D20 conceptions of medieval combat, which will itself create new imbalances across the game that you now have compensate for too. The problem with these new imbalances (created by your force fitting) is that we have no historical/concrete experience of them (no experience of how tin foil plate armor should work, no experience of rocket powered throwing weapons should work, etc.), so fixing these imbalances will be ham handed. Reality provides a consistent standard to shape the game by.
