My personal take...

Spear is better overall for anti cavalry... because MOST of the time the MAIN problem against cavalry is the charge... not the fighting afterwards... in fact if no charge are invovled calvarise in general get's beat by most efficient melee infantries.... (price effective wise) thus spear>>>polearm as anti cav... but spear is far easier to access and hoard than pikes... unless u start a late game usually spears are more useful....

I personally just go with no pavise ... for sevearl reason.... 1. if you have a master bowyer.. u can get either v1 arbs or v0 pavise arbs.... 2.tiring faster does have a siginificant effect on ranged performance... 3. arbs are pretty high in defense/armor anyway (for a archer) combined with teh longer range they do well enough in range duals without the pavise....

As for \polearm vs sword... i usually go for both but if i must pick one i go with sword .... the main problem is in general the most common polearms are from poor to horrible in moral, and they fare quiet horriblly against low armor high attack units... they arn't as overall useful and are usually quiet specialized whereas sword inf and usually generalized.... they can handle most situation from well to very well.... in my usual army i have more sword than polearm when i get my way.