well it's last desing from dane, all ppl there was wear this "broke" wepon becose of long war beatwen Leauge&Empire&Umpir vs Archeosometink, then we was discover Aodis and rest of division was come there with this weapon, bcose with this long fight there was not inaf time to fix them, thay look like thet becose of lore
Also the most i like :
with "flying" mechanic who was never before
So i disagree with you and in my opinion thay did great job desing weapon like this
the flail ist indeed a good looking weapon, i also noticed this is something "completely new" (the swinging physics, open the charwindow and turn your char around, its funny)
i also like the look of the broadsword and the mace while the spear and the axe are not so beautiful
as for non-cosmetic weaponskins, its like
1 default weapon
2 light shining weapon
3 strong shining weapon
4 particle emitting weapon (runes VIII +)
5 burning weapon (runes XI +)
6 pure light (runes XIII)
this usually does already a good job, however there are some weapons in leveling which have their look NOT affected by runes at all
the "better" your weapon gets the more unrealistic it looks