@OP
The stats were changed around a fair bit from a while ago. I am not so sure about the speed, though. Polestagger was removed, some polearms' stats were adjusted. Many of the polearms you mentioned are still considered quite good.
@Archery
From the perspective of a melee player that never played foot ranged outside of single player, you just have to endure those who can always shoot at you while you have little chance of ever touching them without them letting you. At a hit-by-hit basis, getting hit by a ranged attack is often times more devastating than a melee hit. For some players, they feel that letting others getting that melee hit on them is much more difficult than the ranged hit, especially since it can come at any angle depending on the map (hills, roofs, etc.).
It's not difficult to see how it's unlikely for the melee player to empathize with most qualms ranged players may have. It feels like the easiest way to counter archers is to become a cav hybrid instead of increasing athletics and vastly lowering defense, or at least that's what I did.
