Did you test the old and new animations' reach compared to the other animations? When I tried to test, I didn't see a significant difference in max range and couldn't tell if it was even changed at all. Right swing was slightly shorter than stab or ~ the maximum effective stab reach before it begins to glance and noticeably longer than the overhead for both animations. I was only able to test against horses, though. Not the best method, but you should try testing yourself in some way in isolated cases outside of combat.
i've played crpg for ~~ 3000 hours, 90% of which has been with 95 reach 1h swords
prior to that, i played ~~ 3000 hours of native, within which i played infantry, using primarily 95 reach 1h swords
i know the reaches of the swords like i know the reach of my fingers, and i can tell you it's ---definitely--- shorter
i'm releasing the swing to get the maximum range which i
know would have hit with the old animation, and they're missing every damn time
i'd imagine for a lot of the guys on crpg, who use incredibly big swords (nordic champion sword, spathion, arabian cavalry sword etc etc), don't play for the
very limit of their reach, and probably try and hit quite comfortably within that reach. seeing as i use a medium length sword however, and i'm very practiced at this, i
always try and play for the very edge of the reach of the sword. for the majority of guys who do not try and play for the edge of the reach, and try and hit comfortably within the sword's range, they're not going to notice the difference in range, because they were never using it anyway.
but for those of us to whom that extra 3 or 4 points of reach was the difference between kills and no kills, this 1h animation change is absolutely
devestating.