Groups of spear/shield can be deadly, since they can stab at your side, and once they hit you, they can spam that till your death. On Eu1, just today, you can see 4 Board Shield/awlpikes going together, led by Sultan Eren. And they're doing fine, imo.
Oh, and Zapper, about the "you bounce often with a spear/shield", l2p. All longpsear and pikeman know now how to aim at the side before going on the target, for speed bonus and such. Why shouldn't the shielder do that too ? Because they're used of just facehugging, block, slash, block, slash ? Not our fault.
And yes, i DO want at least one easy kill, that's the rock/paper/scisors thing, imaright. I get owned by archers, cav, got duels with 2h/Polearms and shield/1h, and can deal with more ease with longspear/pike and shield/spear. That's the way it is.
Yeah, I know that. But you forget that pikes/longspears are FASTER than a spear&shield. AND the enemy is gonna facehug you (unless complete retard), so there really isn't that much you can do alone. Yeah, with friends it works. Still. Nobody has given a proper reason as to why they shouldn't get one more attack direction. Nobody has still given a reason as to how that would be op.
And the glancing. Yeah, looking to the side then turn in works. I do it myself all the time. But there's also the glancing from speed bonus movement. You really need to both go towards each other to do decent damage, and if any of you are moving away then the likelyhood of bounces are almost certain.
EDIT:The thing about shield+spear, it is VERY powerful when sheathable. You can go anywhere on the map that you want with a spear + shield. May not be so great for offense, but it definitely aids your defense capabilities and helps you vs standard 1h+shield counters.
Archers? Shield
Cav? Range Bonus on spear stops cav, then change weapon for the kill
Horse archer/xbower? - both shield + spear
2v1 against opponent? Spear+shield with your buddy
Everything else? 1h weapon.
Everything else 1h? Well that's not what we are talking about here. We are talking about having only shield&spear. A spear, 1h and Shield is VERY different from spear and Shield.
And while I agree with what you say about the rest. Spear&shield really HAVE a lot of defensive power. It's just that there is almost none offensive ones except for ganks (which it is good with). And I've said it before and I'm gonna say it again. Spear&shield isn't supposed to be the best thing when you are alone. But giving them ONE more attack direction wouldn't make them OP/super/OMFG UNFAIR or anything. It would just give them the POSSIBILITY to fight a duel without having to take the spear away.