Scared of muters and invokers at any rank?
I mean honestly, the main reason people bash is because flee denial + command denial is the best available option for a warrior at almost any rank for killing people, but it's pretty much also the most boring. When you have ones that put out damage as well, all the better.

At low ranks the mage generally flees as soon as he is attacked because he can't win without commands, and even with them the odds are not that great. Keep in mind, the mage generally can't lag the warrior at all. So it's not a lot of risk for the warrior to still bash to deny fleeing, risk a demolish from a spell and let combat rounds kill the mage. The warrior still controls the fight for the most part. And if the warrior's bash lands, he spams it til the mage dies. Denying a mage fleeing as well as any combat options is just making him a victim. It's also quite boring in terms of gameplay, for both people, in my opinion. And this applies to classes beyond mages.

If these changes went through, lagging him keeps the mage there and prevents a degree of command denial (just not complete command denial- he can do a command that isn't flee), so he can fight back. Now as the warrior you have a choice. Hope the melee outdamages him, or execute other commands to up your own damage output in hopes you can seal before he regains the ability to flee. It makes any PK situation far more tactical which is far more interesting for both parties. And now the mage has a chance to fight back, even though he will still likely die if he does not flee, he has a chance.

The point being that instead of me being a warrior where I type bash or whatever other lag move I have (and that is pretty much all I do in every fight), I actually use other skills and my other weapon spec. When you reference the pole spec you seem to make the assumption that said warrior only has one viable tactic. Polearms are defensive, and utility. Dirt, entrap. Legsweep. Cutoff. Chop. And you have another weapon spec. So why is it so many warriors think they only have to use one, whatever lags. bash, trip, legsweep, cranial, pincer, lash. What makes these so much better than all the other options?
Because it does three things for a warrior. 1. Flee denial. 2. Command denial. 3. Shifts the fight to basically who has the better automatic skills, which almost always favors a warrior. Notice, when warriors fight other warriors, it's not as often you'll see lag spam. You see attempted maladicts to try and shift benefit 3 to their favor before going for lag. But if they feel confident in benefit 3 (they have high natural damage and riposte perhaps), they still just bash. So warriors end up with some of the best lagging options with some of the best means to capitalize on them. There's a reason a very high % of the deadliest chars are warriors and not any other class. Hell, if you're an orc, throwing in savage and cheap shot means for all those intersting skills orcs get, really they just use one all the time. Bash + high dam + RNG. Maybe spinebreaker if they're desperate.

However, if you mitigate the command denial a degree, it makes the fight far more interesting. Maybe Pincer prevents fleeing for three, but command denies for one. So it's still a valuable tactic, but you won't just spam it because of what it opens you up to.

I suppose my overall issue is in a game as varied and dynamic as CF, the way lag works really oversimplifies the mechanics of combat and really just makes it much duller. Command denial is largely the reason for this. I don't think it needs to be removed, but I do think some tweaking might make it a bit mor interesting.

And to address paladins. An evil could still just as easily tear up a paladin. They may have to actually use tactics now to do it is the difference, and that's not a bad thing. Oh no, my duerg warrior has one tough matchup because now I can't keep a paladin from wrathing me while I hit him and riposte him every combat round and end up winning with 75% of my hp. It's the end of duergars as we know it. Hardly.

The whole problem is a fight based pretty much entirely off of round to round combat is not very interesting for anyone. Sure, you got a PK, but is it really satisfying to win a PK by typing in bash bash bash? Or sitting with your cabal mate and alternating lag commands so as to perma a person? I know that I've died to true perma lag with all of my chars, and honestly, it's not being killed that bothers me. It's that I may as well just walk away from the computer because it's boring as hell. And with changes you might be able to completely command deny someone, but it should be a hell of a lot harder than it currently is.