They could keep those flailing wildly animations for low skill levelled characters. A lot of us might like to imagine we'd look cool swinging a sword but even a short youtube search will show those animations are really quite realistic.

While the KS might fail, I hardly think they'll give up on the game. They have a new writer even before the campaign's over. For combat mechanics, I wish they'd sign on spookyfx/Duke Patrick of TES combat modging. The things that guy has done despite the limitations of the CK makes his mods indispensable to my TES gaming.