He usually used imperial defense with daggers and switched to imperial offense only when using hth (or killing mobs).
And he used a shield a lot, so effectively he had less attacks per round than me.
In dagger vs dagger fights you don't want to deliver too many attacks against your opponent because direct hits do less damage than concealed, thus switching to imperial defense and a shield reduces your attacks count (and get concealed less) and increased defense helps with conceals.
Another reason: he wanted people to stay in a fight until he charged STSF.
I'm not a newbie and I can see that behaviour and its purpose, but still, even if we both were using a shield and he had STSF+imperial defense and I had dodging legacy he usually outmelee'd me anyway (more hits passed through, more conceals too, I don't count additional imperial tactics kicks here).
He also had better success rate with normal warrior skills like bash, dirt, dagger spec skills.

I don't see many edges that would give him upper hand in direct melee over my set of edges. We both had reconing, parry anything (which rarely works) etc.