When people start using the world realism I usually stop reading.
It's a game with magic and races of varying species, in a made up world.
Can realism apply to certain things to make mechanics better? Sure. But do we really need to bring every mechanic of the game under the scope of realism?
I'll give an example. I'm not interested in a hunger / thirst mechanic, but I was okay with food getting your reserves up which had a negative impact on your 'stats' (HP, Stamina, Mana) if you didn't eat anything. I'd even be up for foods giving small, temporary buffs; and the better the food the better the buffs.
Do I think bladed weapons should hit plate-like armors for less? Sure, and hit non-plate-like armors for more? Sure.
Do I think calvary / mounted players should one shot people on foot? No, might be realistic if a man charges by you and swipes but for the sake of a balanced, fun experience it would be dog shit to have something like this.
Point being. If you ever want to change something in any game, let alone MO, try to follow a series of steps like this.
The change you want --> Why do you want this change --> How does this improve upon what is currently, or not currently in the game --> How does it effect other things --> Will it actually solve your problem.
I'll give an example of following this flow chart.
1. I want combat to be faster.
2. I want the combat to be faster because in its current state it is too slow in my opinion, which makes for a higher skill floor rather than a higher skill ceiling. i.e. Easier to play, easier to defend, easier to stay alive. It doesn't promote skill.
3. If the combat was faster it would improve upon what we currently have which is slow combat. Slow combat currently promotes playing super defensive and allows almost any player to be on an even playing skill. Players shouldn't have to constantly spin, jump, feint multiple times, or attempt to run around you just to land one single hit. Players also shouldn't have to turtle and hold ripostes to potentially get a hit in. The games aggressive play is dead, and makes enough numbers superior to raw, mechanical skill.
4. This would effect the slow paced nature of the game, and would as well begin to push out the tactics of having one player function as 'bait' (i.e. Swinging one specific direciton) whilst the other swings another direction. Instead, a player who is more mechanically adept could fight 1v1's without them turning into long, construed battles that last for several minutes. This is important because in group fights you have to 1v1 at times, and sometimes players can -not- be finished unless they have more than one person on them. This separates players who are not as mechanically adept or have the reaction times to truly resemble their skill level rather than having the current combat system artificially 'crutch' them.
5. To an extent, yes. Players continuously make the point that the combat was slowed down for latency reasons, but if everyone had a flat ping of 100 as proposed by several people within the community to where even people near the server were at an even playing field latency wise, I wouldn't see the problem in having faster combat. Trying to balance a game around AU or OCE / Asian players is super silly. This would also make combat much more fast-paced and it would stop the drawn out fights that tend to happen and allow better players to truly shine rather than being above average.
People might think this is crazy, but hear me out. Being defensive in MO1 and MO2, has always been easier than being aggressive (In most situations.) The only role I can think of that didn't abide by this logic is spear-play in the last few years of MO1's lifespan and even now in MO2.
You could basically spam a spear in MO1 and now in MO2 without much repercussion because you can hit trade for absurd damage, and if someone just sits and parries you target switch.
But most good players in MO1 could easily kite, parry, and out footwork players being super aggressive than consistently dive into a group and stay super aggressive. You'll eventually get peeled out, unless the group is just absolutely terrible. As opposed to being defensive where you're in a group of good players who know how to peel & heal, while you parry.
TL;DR
Slow combat promotes higher skill floor. Making bad players more average, and better players trying harder in a very constrained system to out perform a system that benefits numbers > skill. Realism is not always the answer.