Yeah, but if I remember correctly in VC it applied to all weapons.Balancing weapon breaking mechanics is useless IMO. Just using Warband mods as an example, most people I have seen on the internet hated this mechanic, and the mods offered an option to disable it altogether due to the scale of this complaints. In VC was even an skill, which translates into another "tax skill" like Inventory Management that will suck the fun of playing unless you leveled it up, limiting builds.
It is not an interesting decision to make then, as you say its just a skill sink.
An interesting decision to make is "Do I wail on these 15 dudes in front of me with a Poleaxe, knowing it could leave me without a poleaxe when I really need one, or do I use my Mace and save the Poleaxe for when we storm the walls and I might need it more?".
If weapon breaks only apply to certain weapons (i.e., polearms), and have a durability visible like shields, it can become an interesting decision. Games are just a series of interesting decisions to make. Having a "low ammo" nuclear reach weapon on your back is more interesting than having a ****ty spear that is useless in 3/4 of situations in order to be "balanced".
I've proposed this as a solution to make Lances actually interesting, buffing them in general but making them use durability. We'll have to wait for mods to play around with that.