You can do a god damned minute-change in a single second, and if I try to escape the stab/couch by going inside and getting trampled, any good Cavalry that I fight against will just slightly turn and I'll be absolutely fucked anyway.
This is only true at slow speeds and with Arabians, and even Arabians can't do that at full speed.
The devastating crash of the charge. The broken lances! Draw your swords! Hack and slash! This would add excitement, variability, and depth to the game...no matter which way you look at it.
The problem is charges are not devastating, and the plated charger is the worst horse in the game. This would not add excitement, variability, or depth. Players would find new ways to piss you off while on horseback. If you want to add depth or make it more difficult, add actual charges where you press a button and get a speed and charge bonus and maneuverability penalty, then lower the top speeds of the horses. You could probably do this for infantry too.
Napoleonic wars prevents you from blocking with lances, pikes, and other long polearms, you could do the same in cRPG.
Everybody complains about OP cav, but the problem is that cav are not OP, and "everybody" is not being used literally. They are whining because they ran off on their own and got killed with 5 minutes left in the round and have nothing better to do than post about it. Does anyone have a link to the data page that had the best weapons by kills or something? As I recall it was 2H weapons that were the most lethal.
It might be okay if every map had a place you could go to grab a new lance, but then people would want a place for arrows and shields and such as well.
It's also more noob friendly, because there is less weak infantry chase.
It isn't more noob friendly at all, the singlemost effective thing someone can do below level 20 is carry around a spear or other polearm and protect their teammates from horses, even if only by rearing them.