You know what is even more unrealistic? People taking 12-17 foot poles, sprinting forward, stabbing them into the ground, and propelling themselves 20 feet in the air. Oh wait, that's called pole vaulting and trained athletes do it every day. I have no doubt, that if a trained pikeman had the inclination or need to jump while thrusting a merely 9-12 foot pole, he could do so. As to the real world efficacy of this possible action as a tactic, we will not speak, for any game lacking a one-to-one mapping of the human body only entails an abstraction of combat, not a true representation. After all, I don't seem to recall infinite feinting, infinite sprinting, instant turning, turning on one's own axis without a pivot, strictly perpendicular blocks, or strictly four attack directions in any medieval or renaissance fechtbücher.
On a more serious note, the more things a player can do and defend against, the more opportunities there are for skill to shine through. Ceteris paribus, a game with 100 moves has a higher skill ceiling than a game with 10. I like these little idiosyncrasies because it allows a player who can master and defeat them to be more successful than one who cannot, that is, it raises the skill ceiling and makes the game more variable.