Stop arguing about historical correctness, take a look at CRPG's battle field, we have a huge variety of soldiers both male and female, cross dressers, knights, samurai, ninja, vikings, peasants, ladder builders, etc, etc. & all them just rush out in a huge mob like fashion to lay the smack down on the opposing team for whatever reason.
Sidesword + Huscarl is pretty deadly but if you wield an axe you'll open em up pretty quickly.
no opinion on if it should be nerfed or not
I die to side swords and huscarl but I also kill them quite frequently as well.
maybe if all shielders got really skilled like some other players of note there would be a problem..
+1 to making the kick not useless though, would be nice