I actually found weapon balance in Persino to be quite good.
Legendaries are gimmicks. You can get regular weapons from shops, although the best have low abundance, that match the legendaries in power when they're masterwork. There are at least three one-handed swords that match the performance of Aurora when at least balanced, with different speed/length balance. One-handed maces, picks, hammers and axes are not bad either, though generally too short for horseback use, save one or two bastard ones. If you want to use two-handed swords, there legendaries are best, though some regular two-handers come close. In fact one, extremely rare one, has, when masterwork, one point higher damage than Skyfall and Dreaded Sword. But there are other weapons too. There's a couple of two-handed axes long enough to be comfortably used from horseback with a power to back it up and a hammer or two IIRC...
Or you can go full polearm. That's actually viable in Persino, in fact it might be the best way to optimize your character. Abendstern and Old Abenstern are ultimate powerhouse weapons. Massive piercing damage, crush through blocks, 130 reach for comfortable use, can be swung from horseback. Terribly slow though, so you need high skill...which isn't hard to get with polearms. After all, you got all those Divine Aethling and Nisaynian parties running around, grab Knight Lord's lance and go soloing. Some people also like the Elintor Guard Spear. It's powerful and long for stabbing from horseback or killing those poor suckers in melee at the top of ladders and siege tower, but it's not that good at close melee...you have to put shield down and swing it.
Ranged weapons are well balanced too. Crossbows are good if you don't want to use skill points on ranged skills, but in Persino they have a bit of a hidden buff, slightly increased damage for body shots against high armor. There are some very good ones around too...Master's crossbow is ultimate foot sniper crossbow, while Dwarven crossbow is best cavalry one...it also has three-bolt "magazine", so you have to reload it only after three shots...makes it quite quick able to fire almost as quick as bows.
If you spend enough points, bows are best long range DPS. But everything considered, even best bow doesn't match per-shot damage against average armored targets of Master's crossbow with dwarven bolts until PD 10...but PD can go up to 15 in Persino. So it's your choice if you want to spend skill points.
Throwing weapons got a few surprises. Cretasan Darts are well balanced in terms of ammo and damage, but have high PT requirement, making them more inaccurate than most other throwing weapons. But there are better things. Aroulo leaf bombs can damage lightly and medium armored troops around the impact point, and can cause troops directly hit by them to go into frenzy, attacking nearest friendly troops. And Tolranian alchemists cooked up something even better for taking out tight groups of enemies...but you have to take it from them by force.