Interesting discussion seen in Dio's website:
(http://www.qhcf.net/cforum/vpost.pl?106207)

My take is:
Crossing the swords and parrying down, the opponent's weapon will be close to the ground as swords are still pretty long. There is plenty of gap to kick out, I assure you.

The only restriction I see are the short races like gnomes, dwarfs executing them. They shouldn't be able to do it to the face, but I think more for the abdomen/legs of taller opponents. Overall I don't think the Imms will code the cosmetic changes, will they?

I can see 2 ways of executing it:
1. Crossdown parry, push to side.
2. Using the push momentum, swing your leg from the other side to strike the face/abdomen/groin/legs of opponent.

Or
1. Crossdown parry, push upwards.
2. Kick out to face/abdomen/groin/knee of opponent.

Changing a skill that people ONLY tend to use when they are bored and ####ing around. I mean almost ANY other sword skill is better even considering the tiny maledictions cross does. Unless you can beckon yourself a special ccul'gra the skill doesn't add much and even in that situation the actually value of the skill is still slim to none.

Cross is the highest damage 2 round skill sword specs get, so it can be useful if the sword spec doesn't want to lag himself overly much, or say his opponent just missed a bash, and he wants to get in a nice chunk of damage while still having a chance at getting the first command in afterwards

Also, cross against a gnome, or with spiked boots has an even or better damage rating for its lag amount when compared to double thrust, and when perfected doesn't miss as often (in my experience).

Crossdown parry can do the following
Psuedo blind, IE no scan *I think it can fully blind for a tick too*
Minor bleeding *An evicerate?*
Make the opponent not attack for the following round *they might get their first attack thats it though*
Make the opponent miss a spec skill
Ruin his defenses for a round. *This is why I use it*
As well as a nice MANGLE to ***DEM
So, in my opinion this skill is a VERY nice option to jab or doublethrust.

For low lag, I always used jab.

Cross down parry can block special attacks, if you time it right. It also has this neat effect of messing up scan not to mention bleeding, so its good for fighting people in mazes.

Additionally, it does good damage against gnomes/svirfs. Double thrust is rarely worth doing except as a giant or other high strength class. 3 rounds of lag and if you have low strength it will miss very often. For those races, typically jab is better. Jab is reliable enough that round for round if you hit 4 in a row its like a no-committment flurry. Granted, flurry can land a lot more than that, but its a large risk as a low strength class to lag yourself that long.