In addition to the above comments about its tactical utility I thought I might pass on that in a book I recently read "English Martial Arts" the suggestion is that two-sword fighting with the broadsword and dagger only evolved when the broadsword developed tapered rather than parallel edged. The parallel edged sword had most of its wieght at the front, whereas the tapered edged sword was balanced. This made a tapered edge sword more sutable for use defensively as it was more maneouverable, the parallel sword tend to be used more for hacking, and the shield tended to be used instead for defence.
As an aside the book is not a *must have* but it does have a number of black and white pictures showing the basic traditinal English techniques for broadsword, broadsword and dagger, broadsword and buckler, quaterstaff and bill and fist. Interestingly the shield is used in a couple of techniques offensively both to shield bash the opponent or to cut with the rim. So a shield can be used as a weapon as well in a 2H technique. Also note that even if you don't have anything in your second hand, that hand tends to be used, to grab the oponents sword arm after a parry etc. So nearly all techniques are 2H in some way and your opponent has to wathc what you are doing with both hands.
I'm sure there will be some divergent opinions out there though.
Also IMHO 2H techniques come into play more in situations where it would be impractical to carry a shield, and are associated with defence available to you in social situations where wearing anything more than a sword or dagger is impractical
I would suggest that the abstract nature of combat resoloution means that 2H techniques and 1H techniques can be handled the same, its just the descriptive quality of what happened that matters.
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