Well some of us are working on mods which should help make conventional forces more interesting into the late game.
I think additional weapon-length effects are in order, personally. There was a thread about a year ago with some suggestions for improving the repel mechanic a bit. It's not a trivial adjustment, but if the repel was a real full-strength attack, and if polearms received a reciprocal anti-charge bonus, and if very long weapons meant more attacks from a dense formation, I think it'd be about right.
I'm in favor of well-done piercing/slashing/bludgeoning distinctions, but I think that is a different issue, and that a weak implementation of it is worse than none at all. Not that Illwinter tends to make anything but very good implementations of important game mechanics.
PvK