Yes, I agree with this assessment. I had this discussion with our gaming group last weekend. I explained that combat as-is took a long time to resolve, and led to slow movement of the story line.
I spent a couple weeks reading RQ materials online to see if there were house rules or other philosophies on combat. I found examples of both, but it didn't lead me to the kind of conclusion I expected.
In the forums, someone mentioned using general hit points for lackeys (trollkin, street thugs in 3rd age Pavis, etc.) so that the group didn't spend a lot of time with heroic abilities and combat manoeuvres on cannon fodder. I also recalled how we used to all burn up our CA's (or whatever they were called) in 3E D&D and how that could be a time-saver.
Then I came across this web site:
http://weareallus.com/
It's the web page of Greg Stafford. In it, I came across 3 articles by Greg, Ray Turney, and Steve Perrin, the original creators of RuneQuest and Glorantha. The interviews were entitled, "How RuneQuest was Made".
Here, the game designers showed how they were not getting what they wanted out of the combat mechanic used in the D&D of the 70's, so because some of them were involved in the Society for Creative Anachronisms, where they frequently simulated medieval combat. They took those practical skills and made the RuneQuest combat system - a system where it became important where and how you hit someone with a sword. It was a system that demonstrated that it wasn't enough to simply beat on someone until they were down, but instead that it was possible to take down an opponent with a well-aimed blow to the right location.
These rules added a level of cinematic realism to the game. And this is where I got derailed from my goal of trying to find a way to simplify combat for our RuneQuest game - to alter it too far towards simplicity robs the game of its essence, it's character.
At this point, instead of finding ways to speed up combat by cutting corners and using house rules, I find myself embracing the RuneQuest combat system for what it is - a well thought-out system that portrays the lethality of combat.
A perk of this system is that it makes for far better stories later on. "Yerno Hellscream fatally wounded his opponent with a well-placed sword stroke to the junk," reads much better than "You hit the orc for 12. He drops."
In any case, how you and your group choose to handle it is up to you; as always, Your Game May Vary.
Many thanks to our GM for putting up with us for as long as he has. 8)