Aren't they good for battle mages? A sword, shield and mail doesn't require much in the way of strength, compared to a great sword and plate armour. It all fits together much more nicely when you only have to meet the requirements for your skills and spells. I tried a two-handing battlemage and it was a struggle to meet all of the requirements and ended up just using low level buffs so I could swing the big sword around, not un-effective but it was boring.
