I don't think pierce damage throwing weapons are really that powerful at all, and things like the lance are balanced. Its just the high cut shit like the heavy throwing axes that I think do way too much damage. Urist/Paul changed the soak values for cut throwing weapons to be like it was before armor got nerfed so they would end up doing more damage because throwers complained that class of weapon was useless, so gimmick PT stacked builds + high cut throwing weapons + the sheer randomness of ranged damage calculation in the game + speed bonus fuckery = a bizarrely high frequency of throwing weapons doing 70-100 HP worth of damage. I admit its not consistent or always, but I have certainly had cataphracts lose like 70 percent of their HP to body shots before. Yes they don't get black barred or one shotted unless its a head shot, but ~100 damage is easily in the realm of probability against a moving target. I swear riding away from throwers sometimes increases the damage as if you are riding towards them or something or just gets RNG'd to be high as hell no matter what.
i'm not a sperg or developer so I don't know the formulas but heavy throwing axes do 44 base damage.. powerthrow is let say, 14 percent damage bonus? 10 powerthrow. About 70 base damage, am i right? Ignoring a good chunk of armor due to the old soak values and that will black bar medium/heavy infantry. I've definitely had it happen to me before. This is with a single throw.
I don't really mind having my horse destroyed by a throwing lance or spear, or a light cav being wrecked by throwing axes. I just think cut weapons being so effective in ignoring armor (honestly, I feel like armor should reduce all ranged more than it already does) is imbalancing.
And yes, when throwing was at its peak in cRPG a while ago, the game was absolute bullshit to play, and people would laugh at how OP being a hybrid thrower was, every battle had tons of shit being thrown about, most OP build was lame shit like huscarl + elite scimitar + 2 stacks of throwing axes with 7-9 PT and PS, the WPF scaling I believe hammered that down the most. What this leads to is the decreased accuracy that some people complain about by your effective WPF being kind of shit, but light armor negates this for the most part I think.
Throwing might be a LITTLE weak, but pure throwers do insane damage and its a reasonable sidearm specialization. Just please don't compare it to the viablity of a crossbow sidearm (way too easy) or teh damage potential of an archer (mind blowingly OP) because all of that shit is poorly balanced enough as it is.
I think the last thing the game needs already is more ranged players doing even more damage. Just nerf cav and archers, leave the rest as it is and see how it goes.