Don't hate me for what I'm about to say but since people are already talking about alternative systems.. I did run Zweihander and my players loved it. I started with 4ed and we played the starter adventure plus a couple from the Ubersreik Avdentures. They loved the feel of the Old World ( I give a l...

I have come to similar examples of fighting in 4e and promptly changed to Zweihander. Only ran a few sessions there but I was glad to see that combat was undesirable and deadly, and because of these reasons, when it happened it was super tense and everyone was paying total attention to it.

Just registered to let you know I read and loved your house rules and I'm implementing probably all of them