Here's a simple fix that makes the game much better.
-If you completely miss an attack (hit nothing but air), you have a slight penalty to movement speed, block, and attack speed for a short duration.
-The debuff "stacks" with consecutive misses, meaning that you get slower and slower as you miss more and more.
Example:
-I'm fighting some dude. I take a sideswing at him, and I miss completely. I have 10% reduced attack/block/movement speed for the next .5 seconds. It's a slight inconvenience for a slight mistake, but nothing deadly.
-I'm drunk and I have a big polearm. I miss 3 overhand attacks in quick order, and find my attack/block/movement speed reduced by 30%. This is a noticeable penalty, so I stop spamming and re-evaluate my strategy.
-I'm a super cool dude with a big 2hander. There are a bunch of enemies in front of me. I start swinging left-right with reckless abandon, hoping to outplay some nooblord with my leet skills. After 8 complete misses, I have 80% reduced attack/block/movement speed for a short duration. It's a big penalty, and it sucks. I die quickly, and spend the rest of the round yelling in *DEAD*chat about how lucky my opponents were.
Results:
-"Slap on the wrist" penalty for a single missed strike. Shit happens, and you won't get screwed over because of a single lucky/laggy/(insert your excuse here) missed strike.
-Wild punishment for mindless spammers who hit nothing but air.
-No real change for skilled/smart play.
-Appropriate penalty for reckless/thoughtless play.
The part where I play on your ego:
-You're a really skilled player who never misses attacks, so this is a great idea that won't ruin the normal flow of your play.
-You only get killed my noob spammers/luckers/crutchers/badkids/BRs, so the game will be much better because you're much less likely to get killed by something lame.
And yes, I am posting this because I was just killed by a person who was nonstop overhand chopping the air as he ran me down