I think warband's combat is better (3k+ hours mp) than Bannerlord's by a lot. In BL, some of the two handed swings are extraordinarily fast; combine that with the fast sideways movement speed and you are left with two handed players running in circles without blocking trying to spam swing at their opponent. That would't fly in warband.
I know this is early access, so as far as the servers are concerned, I am not too upset with the lack of private servers and the other headaches; however, If TW wants to keep a strong mp community, should eventually get these private servers up and keep the playerbase up to date.
I think there is hope for this game though. I had alpha access back in august and the game was simply terrible. It has come a long way but still needs a long way to go. Let's just wait and see what happens.