Yes, a staff, now that's a pretty devastating thing to swing around. I think of a stick as a one-hander, and a staff as along two-hander.
What you're saying about proper cutting strokes not being intuitive is part of my philosophy for making swords and long blades. What I say is, that nowadays in the age of the gun, the chances that someone using a sword in self-defense is very skilled with the sword as a weapon are low, and furthermore, sword techniques are based on sword fighting. It doesn't take subtle parries and oblique cuts and thrusts and doing flips like a ninja to take down an attacker who's wearing a T-shirt and jeans, swinging around a baseball bat or knife. What today's sword user is likely to employ are the natural cuts: machete-like swings down and across.
Essentially, they are likely to treat the sword like it is a stick.
With that in mind, I have tried to shape my personal blade design to take advantage of this. Instead of shaping a blade around nuanced swordsmanship, instead they are designed to maximize the potential of normal, natural "long implement" strikes. Was I successful? I'd say at least somewhat, and of course higher-level sword techniques are fine too. In the case of using one of my swords like a stick, it is going to be much more devastating than a stick if used the same way. Using a stick is intuitive, and replacing that stick with the blade is going to up the power level to 9000+. Many sticks that will get sheared in half or broken by the blade, since it is titanium alloy and not going to break or take any sort of damage that hinders its use.
The other aspect is that when I say "good sword" most of the time that means
thin, very sharp, and importantly, a decent handguard. Stick guy isn't going to have a handguard and that is a huge disadvantage. In the case of the staff, now sword guy has to be careful because the staff can put you out with a big swing or jab. If someone isn't skilled with a staff, any more than sword guy is with his sword, then if staff guy misses and sword guy gets in range, staff guy is fooked.
The thing I would be wary of, if I was using a sword, would be the guy with a club-like stick, like a shillelagh.
Here is a good example of my sword design:
It's like a really fancy curved stick. The blade is about 26" and oal is something like 33". The handguard is around 6" long.