I agree that mauls needed a nerf. Say what you want, but mauls are support weapons. Im sure if you're very good with it you might win some duels, but thats not the purpose of the maul. cRPG is all about choices, you either choose a class that excels at 1vs1 melee (but somewhat less effective in groups) or a support weapon that deals shitloads of damage and is useless in duels. Cant have it both ways.
I like the fact that the longer you hold the overhead the less damage you do, thats very realistic. Im not so sure about 1s wait before release. Id rather see the overhead attacks slowed down to a point where the animation takes 1s to reach full power (and you should be unable to block during that 1 second).
On the other hand mauls in this game are totally fucked up and unrealistic, ignoring even basic physics, so what does it matter if you fuck them up even more. All in all, the devs could have done a hell of a lot worse, so Im not complaining.