The Many a True Nerd video for Callisto Protocal suggested that the jeopardy is taken out of the melee dodging system as soon as you realise that if you just start every fight (against the mooks, at least) holding a direction then you'll be absolutely fine.
My general experience is that if a game is this divisive then it's basically a 6.5/10 which one lot have decided is a manky turd and one lot have decided is an underappreciated megaclassic and must be defended to the death.