Blah-buh-blah blah blah blah.
Lot of people are right in the first page of this thread that I read.
1h
without shield is amazingly good. So it's not terribly realistic that you have such a massive penalty
for using a shield, but that's Warband.
Learn to manual block and you will dominate 1h against anyone who is faster than you while you use shield.
Also, I don't know if it's ping or what but I often begin to counter-swing at someone
JUST BEFORE I hear the blocked-hit noise... especially when 1h/shield.