"The pilum (plural pila) was a javelin commonly used by the Roman army in ancient times. It was generally about two metres long overall, consisting of an iron shank about 7 mm in diameter and 60 cm long with pyramidal head. The shank was joined to the wooded shaft by either a socket or a flat tang."
Pila were used to disable shields by making them too cumbersome to wield. They were not designed to kill people but to break phalanxes.
Throwing lances are stupid, they need considerable balancing or to be removed (or remade into the role of a Pilum using on-hit weight adding triggers at the cost of making them 30 damage and a bit more accurate. Seriously it would be cool to have something tactical like that rather than an "lol insta-kill no skill".)
It isn't that they are accurate but how inaccurate they are which makes them only usable in close to melee range. And oh yes do they one hit kill. Sure, there are times when people survive but that is generally rare or a high HP build being hit by a low PT thrower with no speed bonus.
I'm a thrower and with 10 PT I can one-shot Wallace and he is a super heavy tin can. I should not one-hit a guy with 70+ body armor and 10+ IronFlesh unless it is a headshot.
They don't currently serve any game use for balance or an interesting gimmick like "ohoho it adds tons of weight to a shield like a pilum so it makes it too heavy to use".
The usual arguments in favor of the throwing lance come along these few points so I'll just counter them now:
1. You only get 2 per stack. : You can pick them up. That is 2 dead things or destroyed shields. per stack. You can have 4 stacks.
2. They are really expensive. : Uh yeah, So is wearing plate. The top tier of everything is really expensive. Except you can onehit guys wearing plate which costs way more.
3. They have terrible accuracy : Not a reason to give them sympathy but rather a reason why they are so bad for the game. And due to it being an inaccurate just-be-close weapon that means it requires little skill to use effectively, and, more player skill produces no rewards.
Oh, how can I forget this too: They are a weapon that 1 hits enemies
with little to no danger to himself. It is a high reward - no risk weapon. Every other weapon that can come even anywhere close to the one hit capabilities of a throwing lances are High risk to the user.