Cav are already powerful even if they don't win 100% on a charge against aware opponents. I almost stopped reading your post when you said that cav should just beat 1h effortlessly, especially since lance cav already do very well against 1h.
You also have to view from the infantry's perspective. Every time they hear a horse drawing near, they have to confirm whether that person is friend or foe and whether or not he is the target. In addition, the sound of the horse doesn't always equate to how close that unit is to attacking you accurately. What I'm getting at is that often times, cav is capable of getting the attack initiative on opponents. Cavalry units are already essential and viable classes imo.
I wouldn't mind a small increase in the angle, but is there any justification since lancer cav still seems pretty dang effective?
Lance cav already does well against 1H? I'm talking about aware 1H'ers. They can block with their shield, Jump out of the way, or jump slash you, which usually results in a 1 hit kill. The chance that a 1Hander will succesfully jump slash you is low, but it needs to be even lower.
More importantly is how a 1H can side step, and slash your horse as it passes by, which takes down about half the horses health unless you have a heavy warhorse.
And as I said in my conclusion, only the skilled cav players will know how to utilize this increase in degrees effectively, which bad cav players will remain bad. The skill gap between a great cav player, and a good cav player is way too small due to this lance nerf.
My biggest complaint is how terrible cav on cav combat is now. Whoever has larger numbers and gets on your 6 O clock wins the cav vs cav battle. As I said before, in Native, skilled cav players can take on multiple unstilled cav players by themselves, which is what it should be like.
In Native, if someone got on your 6 O clock and you were the superior player, you could out maneuver them and turn the tables, in CRPG when you have a guy chasing you and you try to out maneuver him in anyway, you'd get a lance to the face due to the limitations of the game mechanics. You can't do shit besides run to you're teamates and hope that he gives up on the chase. Skill hardly means anything in cav vs cav battles anymore.