I'm going to reopen this old thread, even as a newbie, because I actually got a nice bronze
leaf-shaped sword for Christmas. It's one of Neal Burridge's Limehouse swords, and it's a sweet blade (http://www.bronze-age-swords.com/British_and_European.htm).
It also isn't designed for thrusting. Because of that big mushroom pommel, it's impossible to put the blade in line with your arm for a fencing-style thrust. The pommel digs into your wrist past the 45 degree angle.
The only other modern swords I know that have this type of hilt come out of northern India: tulwars and the like. They are used in martial arts like gatka (see the youtube clips) which are these swirling sword and
shield exercises, and the swords are typically curved slashers like tulwars.
So I started thinking: why would some smith mate a slashing-type hilt with a stabbing-type blade? It's quite evidently not a design flaw, because most bronze swords we know about had wide pommels. It's a great design for locking the sword onto your hand (and I have big hands), but it is crappy for inline thrusts.
Then it hit me: the sword is bronze. Bronze is not steel. It's softer.
Assume you start slashing with a bronze sword, and assume that your opponent has a shield, possibly some body armor. What happens? Your edge gets dull if you hit the shield too many times. If you have a bronze scimitar-shaped sword, pretty soon you have a club.
With a
leaf bladed sword, you just spin your sword 180 degrees, and you have a nice fresh edge to keep fighting with.
This makes sense if you're fighting where people are wearing armor or heavy clothing. In fact, the only place we see curved bronze swords (the khopesh) being popular is in Egypt and the Middle East, where they didn't wear much of anything when they fought.
Note that I'm not saying you couldn't thrust with a
leaf-blade sword. However, it has to be a curving thrust, such as up into someone's armpit. Still, I don't think that
leaf-blades were made primarily for stabbing. I'd guess that the fighting looked more like fighting with a machete, or like one of the northern Indian martial arts like gatka.
Once smiths got their fires hot enough to smelt iron, they had a whole different metal to work with, and that influenced their blade designs ever after.