As an often-time 2d polearm user and hoplite myself, I find hoplites in general a more effective counter to my playstyle. In a group they have a much better potential to screw you over without being easily dealt with due to their shield. You just can't pull the old "charge the pikeman to surprise attack him while he's thruststunned" thing on them. There don't seem to be as many exceedingly impressive hoplites around as there used to be, though.
When I'm using such weapons, I have found that in general the regular awlpike is the easiest weapon for me to get kills with out of any item in the game. Ever since the original turn-nerf the long awlpike (and now the newer weapons that function very similarly) hasn't had similar ease of use, even after the, uh, reparation weight-speed-turning change. They're still very good weapons, but they haven't got as good of team synergy as the long end of hoplite weapons (ashwood pike, light lance) or a long spear or pike, and people seem to know how to deal with them better than old inviso-tip.
The bamboo spear deserves special mention in that it has a great medium range and is an effective in-between of other higher damage 2d weapons and the pike-style weapons, but the lower damage makes it a lot less versatile than the others (the overhead has a penchant for glancing at the worst possible moment and as a hoplite weapon the combination of being almost too long and low damage makes landing effective hits a little more challenging).
Once you get used to the overhead hitboxes, the swiss halberd and especially the english bill are extremely effective group-fighting weapons. If you're capable of exploiting them, you can land hits that practically go through your teammates, which is definitely a boon in a group. Positioning is a lot more important when using them, however, and you'll get more botched attacks from people behind you and people (teammates, that is) moving left and right too much. When fighting against them, though, it seems like most people have not gotten ahold of using them very well. They're usually easier to see coming than down-attack oriented 2d polearms, too.
Poll