It may be optimal to bring more than 1 weapon as a 1h. In fact, you can bring a shield and 2-3 weapons for every possible scenario. Short + spammy, long + slow, and a blunt/pierce weapon.
Without knowing your own damage, can't really say. Speed bonus + holding + head hits is a significant amounts of damage bonus from lower raw damage weapons.
Based on looking at the currently used soak/reduction cut values, low cut is pretty terrible vs. high armor.