I'm not so much worried about the unit design. Whether the sword looks like a gladius is rather secundary. The danger I see here is the impact such units may have on the gameplay. Foot knights were pretty common in late medieval period but I'm a bit afraid that we're going to see the sword-and-shield formations from Medieval I again throughout the time period. If this unit is about a higher-class troop type we'll see in the later game as addition to standard infantry, then it's ok, but in early and high medieval times the main foot units were spears and later pikes and halberds, but not swords. I hope that this is reflected better in M2TW than in MTW.