The advantage of swords over axes is the bonus stats, crits and range (hand-crafted). A scythe has the range, the stats, the crit and damage. There is no comparison. A spear can enter the equation since he has way better range and deals piercing damage. BUT everything that is remotely threatening has high piercing resistance.
BTW, the high damage, low crit axe at BS 5 cannot be sharpened. You can go and test it. And no hand made thing can give you 3 con 3 str 3 speed before even applying anything in it. Plus, a hand made weapon can only be elemental or tenebrium enhanced not both. This put a hand made weapon in an even worse position. The damage calculator in the stat window actually takes into account elemental damages. In terms of raw damage, you don't even need to be lucky to trump anything hand made.
Point is. If you want to play at your best, there isn't many real options due to balance issues. Adding dual-welding won't yield anymore option. At best, it's subpar. At worst, it's grossly OP and makes everything else pointless. The developers need to take balance seriously.
Again, why in the world spears can have dex bonus??
