Best 1h weapons:
1) MW Military Cleaver - long enough, fast enough, has shit ton of damage, imho a little bit harder to block than straight sword
2) MW Steel Pick - insane damage, eats through armor in seconds, super fast but super short, can be fixed using agi build, if you hide behind huscarl and have agi build you'll be able to do super fast strikes and since weapon model is super small, being super hard to block, means that you'll kill a lot even if your knowledge of melee combat is crap
3) MW Elite Scimitar - long, super fast, not so epic damage, no stab but who cares when every your strike looks exactly the same... therefore super hard to block, called spamitar for a reason, weapon hits before model does
4) MW Warhammer - super short, super high blunt damage, has stab (LOLZ), decently fast and most importantly such small weapon (not so easy to block as straight swords) can knockdown a guy in full plate armor (2xLOLZ)
All in all, straight euro swords are for noobs and for looks.