What everyone seems to forget is that one handed weapons are balanced around the idea that you're bringing a shield, vastly increasing your chances of survival dramatically. Shielders are a more defensive class - more of a counter puncher - and are balanced around the idea that you are bringing a shield. If one handers had the same killing power as polearms and two handed weapons why be anything but a shielder? If we started balancing one handers directly against polearms and two handed weapons then shields would have to be dramatically reduced in effectiveness to compensate, and that would just kill the entire point of bringing a shield to begin with.
My gripe with one handed axes, and any short one hander for that matter, is that you have to get in so close to land any hit that's not a right swing (which are unreliable in my opinion). When you get that close it becomes to easy to get kicked, or (my favourite) have some agility stacking cunt just s key and right swing.