Bear in mind that weapon skill has a pretty huge influence on weapon damage.
I've tried to mod leather into viable armour, but in arena testing I noticed that the average iron short sword slash to the upper body:
-bruises the fat when the wielder is Unskilled - Adequate.
-bruises the muscle when the wielder is Skilled.
-tears the skin/fat when the wielder is Talented.
-shatters bones and finely minces organs when the wielder is >Expert.
Expert is only rank 8, so it's back to the drawing board for a while...
I'm assuming that higher skill increases velocity, but my evidence is purely anecdotal, so take my word with a handful of salt.
Typical momentum values (from another post):
Noob (dabbling) average human slashing with a iron short sword: 67 (but they can get lucky and do up to 134 or so)
Grand master average human slashing with a iron short sword: 134
Grand master average human slashing a prone opponent with a iron short sword: 268
Grand master average human heavy slashing a prone opponent with a iron short sword: 402
Grand master, size 80000 human, heavy slashing a prone opponent with a iron short sword: 441
So yes, it looks like skilled weapon users can swing faster. However, "
can't land squarely", "
can't quite connect", and "
can only graze" seem to penalize penetration. Low skill people might make an attack that should have penetrated, but was nerfed by their lack of skill. I ought to figure out this part in detail.