Going to have to side with najo on this one. Shield was only decent because you could avoid kicks with a bit of footwork and utilize ASM™ to avoid getting traded every time you dropped your shield to attack. Now you can’t even do that.
As it stands, fast kick is cheesey as fuck and pretty much secures you the fight because it can FiR, leading to a huge stam advantage. Removing it and leaving the one (heavy) kick would open up the ability to punish poorly timed kicks, while still leaving an anti-shield mechanic in the game. Would also make it more consistent. Just my opinion though.