Its causing simultaneous attack and defence, but without any of the cool fight scenes from ipman. Its also allowing for your swing to be half charged while still mid swing.I'm not a vet but I'll ask this. Why is attack and block queueing so bad? All the other similar games have it and it just makes the combat feel more fluid and responsive in my opinion, if I'm pressing left click my guy should get ready to swing.. not just stare because i misstimed it by .1 secs. Is the skill in knowing the right timing of when to press left click really that rewarding? It just feels more like clunkiness rather than an actual mechanic.
Here's your counter argument "Oh yeah it makes it so you have to practise your new weapon for a longer time to get used to the new timings" I understand but how valuable is that vs the combat not being clunky as hell for most people. And sure it makes it "less skilled" by a small margin (its not that hard to train your timing) but I think skill in combat shouldn't come through overcoming clunky gameplay mechanics.
I voted number 2 though but that has nothing to do with queueing