non-Macedonian style Phalanx - broken?

[Kival]

Spear/shortsword also has no sense in vanilla: why the heck you should switch to a secondary weapon that has lower attack, same lethality and weaker vs. cavalry??

There are some additional things to consider: Animation (speed) and the defense penalty for light spear for example.

[Aper]

There are some additional things to consider: Animation (speed) and the defense penalty for light spear for example.

You are right, but animation speed impact on performance is not easy to quantify, and nobody really knows anything sure about "spear" and "light_spear" boni and mali, AFAIK... Anyway, I thought the somewhat poor performance of shortswords was a common complain among players, that's the reason why in MP semi-official EDU they have been strenghtened.