OK so it really is a role oriented modification, I accept that.
Plus well Heroes arent that often polearm users in fantasy...
Well, our fantasy is mostly drawn from societies where swords were the weapons of the elite. They were not that way because they were the ultimate battlefield weapon, but because they were the most practical and utilitarian side-arm and weapon of self-defense. In a world where, at its core, all authority stemmed from nothing more than the ability to apply superior force at any moment, the carrying of weapons was a highly culturally important thing, which had to be very rigidly controlled by the elite, lest they become pig-stuck by the slightly less elite eager to replace them!
Notice that this pattern goes ALL the way back in recorded history, Gilgamesh's title is 'Lugal of Ur', which literally translates as "Biggest Fist of Ur", the guy that hits harder than anyone else, so he gets to be boss! He'd have carried a sword too, and they'd have been restricted to his class of people, had swords been invented and feasible weapons at that time.
So, most heroes are 'upper class' and thus carry swords! In reality a glaive or a halbard was likely to be a more effective weapon in a serious fight, but something like an arming sword (arguable what 4e's 'longsword' is, though they've heavily mangled the terminology) IS nice in that you can practically wield it even in most tighter spaces and carry it indoors, etc. Its a bit harder to do that with a polearm.
Anyway, Polearms aren't really all that neglected in 4e. Halbards count as axes and glaives count as heavy blades, so they have access to a variety of feats (not to mention polearm feats themselves, which are generally not shabby). The main issues with polearm builds is they take a while to gel due to needing a couple feats, and don't REALLY reach their peak until paragon due to certain feats being paragon, at which point, as [MENTION=6794638]MA[/MENTION]oW has pointed out, being able to threaten beyond 1 square has largely lost its mechanical utility.
I think another problem is that swords, axes, etc all got enhanced versions in AV1, but polearms never got that treatment. They were all d10 weapons, so they weren't drastically far behind, but there never was a d12 polearm (I guess maybe there is in DS or something, I'm not sure, we never used DS stuff). Frankly I think the AV1 weapons were a bad idea anyway and should be dropped from the game. They don't add that much and just represent another feat you need to get. That alone would bring things like the halbard back to being a top-ranked Axe, and with reach its basically a very good axe!
