Thrust feints are countered by chambers, yes. That's why they don't really work, especially if you do a lot of them. And I don't think it's poor design with the blocks, if they were more forgiving like you suggest, defending would become way too easy. Part of the charm of the game is that it doesn't have the eternal duels of Warband/cRPG, because parrying is harder, and because of the stamina system. You can soft read attacks with chamber FTPs though, which works kind of like you suggest, except you attack before you block. Obviously this comes at the cost of lots of stamina, but it does give you a very generous window of defense if you need it.
All of those weapons you mention are also only strong against bad players, but the game does have something of an issue with low level vs. high level play, where there are some very oppressive features at low level that are useless at high level, like rapiers, short spear, shields, etc.
Some duels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlgRF1d33OQThe timed parry makes reading attacks a much more important skill than it is in WB, which is interesting, requires you to stay calm at all times against good players. Also enables lots of different ways of attacking, and pressuring people works wonders.