So the practice sword and practice longsword are so cheap and weak that they are pretty much joke items. 14 blunt one hander and 18 blunt two hander. No knockdown. The reach and speed is okay but you still aren't going to do much with them.
A lot of the cheaper 1H swords (and the short expensive ones) got reduced to zero slots in a patch. The practice sword did not. You could argue that the length and blunt instead of cut damage make it a different category than the current zero slot weapons, but it's just so bad. Making it 0 slots would make it a viable backup weapon similar to the hammer or sickle.
The practice longsword is extremely similar to the 1 slot polearm, the staff. The staff actually does more damage (18b swing and thrust, longsword gets 18/14 respectively). I see absolutely no reason to NOT make this a one slot weapon. Price and power are nearly identical, but the practice longsword has no knockdown and is 2 slots. That's ridiculous.
My motivation for this thread is that I play a crossbow 'monk' who uses a staff as his melee weapon. I like the aesthetics of the practice longsword but I can't use it with my crossbow. It'd be neat to see these weapons pop up from time to time in the server. As they are now, there's no reason to take them on any build. Even knives and staves have their niche. But these poor practice weapons do not.