I would say, though, those are all stacked melee beats that will absolutely wreck ANY melee piece not specifically designed to be anti-melee. If lightsaber was changed, it would not balance things, but simply reverse the advantage - not only are Mara and Kyle now ineffective against Cin/Vader/Dooku, they'll get steamrolled before the end of the round.

Cin Drallig is not unplayable because of not being able to block a tiny cross-section of attacks. He's already vulnerable to adjacent shooters, which is much more of a problem. Flavor-wise, he's much more likely to be vulnerable to Mara Jade than Embo.

I totally agree that it doesn't make sense, but I don't think at all it is a significant problem. I don't think anyone gets spooked out of playing Satele or Caedus because they're afraid they'll face Kyle Katarn.

I do like the explanation about blocking while shooting at point-blank range. It's not perfect, but if one is shooting at point-blank range, you can specifically aim for more vulnerable areas on your opponent, this still getting +10 damage. At 40 feet away, you're just shooting "at" them. When you're shooting at them with sabers crossed, you can aim specifically at head/weak point in armor/etc.

Ironically, the piece I care least about defending (Luke and Leia) actually have the best excuse to be non-melee: it's a Speeder Bike. Luke can shut off his lightsaber and they can just strafe with the blasters.

All that said, though, it's only 6 important characters that are affected, which is not much in the scheme of things.