Haven't seen Largg enough to comment on his playstyle, but neither Teeth, Strudog or Idzo does a lot of spin-jumps, at least from what I've seen.
I do, when getting ganked I jump and turn to get enough distance before I stab. Mostly because if your up and down stab gets blocked by the first guy, you won't be able to block the second guy's attack.
You can call it abusing animations but that is what the entire game is about, finding the tricks of your weapon. The average player can attack and block just fine, the good players know all the tricks. Longspear/pike have a rather limited bag of them, just stop thinking that they are a free kill at close range and you'll be fine.