Agreed, it comes down to tactics, not something being overpowered. When it's properly countered, horses are completely neutered (marginalized). It would be really cool if things were different in warband like you say, it would be nice to be able to pound a shield into the ground to create a half body protection from ranged. Or would be nice if archers could pound stakes into the ground which would injure horses and make them useless. Pikes being able to be braced into the ground would also be cool.
That being said, pikes and tight infantry formations can make horseman useless. I've seen it happen on servers where the infantry moves slowly together and the horseman can only circle the outside thumbing themselves. If one gets antsy enough they can sometimes pickoff people on the outside, but generally they are just waiting for the infantry lines to clash. This is how warfare works, it's called tactics. You have to do something to overcome something, this causes you to vulnerable to something else. Rock, paper, scissors people.
Nothing needs to be nerfed, like headshot says, tactics and player teamwork needs a buff. Wish the dev's in this mod (and like most games) would stop catering to the loudest whiners...most people are happy with the game (and most people who play don't post on the forums...they have regular jobs).
badplayer, i'm not talking about hits from lancer cavalry, I'm saying overall damage for the month of february (or january) in NA1 has stats on page 4 of this topic (that I copied over). With 6 powerstrike on a champion courser most of the time when I thrust into someone I don't kill them unless they've already taken damage (or they are very weakly armored).