No kicks are not fine, they were fine when you could block while kicking (except down, unless you held down block before kicking). Their area of effect was fine, and their active time was fine. There wasn't a large arc in front of your foot (and extending off to the sides of the person's leg), and you couldn't be kicked once the animation stopped raising your leg. both of those are a problem now.
I made an extremely crude graphic to depict what I'm talking about:
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loginUntil the foot is dropped back to the ground, there's a force field around the leg and foot. If you try to approach someone from the front (but off to the side) you still get kicked. This wasn't' a problem with the previous version of kicks (when you could block while kicking).
If the arc and length of time the kick is active was to compensate for not being able to block, you failed miserably. I'd rather people be able to block than have the bastardized version of kick we have today.