There's more to battle than just attack speed. Having 3 AGI means you have 0 or 1 athletics, which severely gimps your footwork. Yes athletics was proved in the other thread to have a negligible effect on max run speed while wearing armor, however what it DOES do very well is increase your acceleration and that's what matters in the heat of combat. Footwork in a melee is all about darting in/out of range, encircling, dodging strikes - with 1 athletics you are a brick shithouse, you better be good at manual blocking because, for example, it will be very hard to sidestep an overhead when you move so slow.
I don't get why people say athletics is gimped unless your whole MO is to try to chase down archers, it has a definite tremendous effect on your ability to use footwork effectively.
And that's why AGI, although it still needs a small boost, isn't quite as bad as everyone thinks it is.