The was nerf was unrealistic - I've proven this is a fact and this was the core argument for it being instated in the first place.
Again: it was a small bamboo spear, not a medieval ashwood pike or something similar massive, the guy who swung it swung it only with focus on speed, and not with focus on power to penetrate an enemies armour. There are good historic sources about fighting with pikes, not a single one mentions jumping and spinning. When you spin, you can't see what you will be hitting, because you have no eyes in the back of your head. Performing a SIDEWAYS movement while stabbing AWAY from you will only result in glancing and the shaft breaking, if you hit the target at all.
I want you to perform a video, where you take a real, medieval spear which was definitely heavier than the spear from the video, put on armour, then equip a straw puppet with armour, place yourself with the back to the puppet, take the spear, start a stab, turn around before you reached your maximum reach, hit the target and penetrate the armour without glancing or breaking the shaft. If you have done that, you have proven it is realistically possible. Which didn't prove at all if it has been done that way. Yes, you can fire two pistols at the same time, on in each hand. Still I'd like you to show me a single police or military unit where this is tought. (The few south American cowboy policemen raiding favelas don't really count).
Unless you've done so you've proven NOTHING.
A poll was performed and those who were for increasing the turn speed won out over those who were against. This is also a fact.
This also proves NOTHING. It's not like everybody is completely unbiased, and everybody has a good overview about game balance or knows much about game design at all. Even if they think so.
I am really interested in game design, and it is what I am going to study this fall, but already in that time where I was only following the game design processes of several games I learned so much, that if I think back what I was thinking some time ago about a few game design questions and how "obvious" the "right" answer is, I recommend everyone to shut up.
That's why I think to better NOT ask the players. In the end, mod development is not a democracy, because unlike in a democracy, where the taxes of the people pay the politicians (next to the bribes from the industrialists), nobody pays the developers of a mod.
So we've basically shot down the argument for the nerf and proven that is was wildly unpopular.
I'd say that pretty much removes any doubt that the nerf was in fact a failure.
The evidence more than speaks for itself.
The devs ONLY can decide if it was a failure or not. If the game plays now how they want it (even if they want it boring, and the game plays boring now), it was a success.