Indeed. Peasants fought with their hands and grain flails because it was all they had, not because some genius discovered their secret value.
And now to completely contradict myself:
I've toyed with the idea of letting every character do base damage based on their hit dice type (-1 if not a martial weapon, +1 if it is, +1 more if 2 handed, etc). The rules contort themselves to promote this idea, giving d4 wizards daggers and darts and d6 rogues shortswords, and d8 clerics some d8 maces and fighters whatever they want. You can fudge, but we end up with d4 people doing d4, d6 people doing d6, d8 people doing d8, and d10 & d12 people doing more.
My rationale: I would rather fight a wizard with a chainsaw than Conan with a spoon because Conan knows 100 ways to hurt you and the wizard is lucky to point the chainsaw, or any other weapon, the right way. The PERSON is doing the damage, not the weapon; by itself, the weapon sits quietly on the floor. In the real world (dangerous, but bear with me), trained hands can kill with drinking straws and ballpoint pens. And you could forget an entire chart in the PH!
As an example, I would love to run a peasant hero who whacks people with a frying pan or stays true to his roots and gets really good with his pitchfork (power critical, improved critical, etc.). But the hit for the sake of role playing is too high in keeping your d6 rake and not picking up the greatsword.
So, am I insane?
