[Colarmel]

It's true, a branch is large enough to increase damage, but it's because it's long enough to give leverage. Hit someone with a toothpick. Swing it, as hard as you can. Or a match. Even if it doesn't break, it's too small to do any damage, it in fact does less damage than your hands.

The one place I think the rules are goofy is on thrust damage. On swing it makes perfect sense. But that toothpick used to poke someone causes more damage than poking them with your finger. When you are talking about thrust, smaller isn't necessarily worse. But swing gets more damage because it applies leverage. The power of leverage is proportional to the size of the lever.