Honestly the biggest problem with playing Pike and Longspear is the low amount of players and complete lack of cohesion displayed by melee most of the time. You can sort of duel with a Longspear, but with a Pike getting isolated is usually gg. This used to be no problem as you just stick with the group, but these days there often is no group at all. So you are left sticking with 1 or 2 guys which usually are completely oblivious that both their and my performance gets boosted if they help me out and can desert you at any time or go duel 1 person instead of target switching to save me.
The removal of 'pole freeze' and the tightening of the stab sweet spots made Pike a little trickier to play, but I don't mind. It forces me to be on the ball with my timing and play more careful. Most importantly, it made the weapon harder so I can laugh at all the scrubs failing utterly when trying it and bask in the glory of my own ability. Pike is a great weapon still. Longspear when I first tried it after the sweetspots change felt really gimpy, but I have seen Yaroslav facehug stabbing like the old days and after trying it a bit myself it still works fine. You just need to time it a little better.
What did hurt these weapons significantly, at least the Pike, is the gradual speeding up of the game. Many weapons are very fast now and the stab stun has not been adjusted accordingly. Attacking anyone who is within potential reach of attacking you is so risky as I can mostly not block their attack because I get stunned on hitting almost anything. If these weapons need a buff it is a reduction of stun chance or duration in my opinion. Also, the awkward blocking of a low speed weapon could get adjusted if you ask me, I don't really get how it works mechanically, but god I hate blocking with my Pike.
Oh yeah and on the subject of anti-cav, with the removal of low damage rearing a lone pikeman in a field is an easy target for a horseman. Just go in slow to reduce damage of the first hit and then stab him in the face at close reach while he isn't able to rear you or damage you significantly. With the heavy horses around a pike can stop horses yeah, but hardly kill them because apart from the horse stopping hit, it deals fairly low damage.