Perhaps you should consider the possibility that, as many direct students of the Founder have repeatedly told -- and continue to tell -- their students, aikijo and aikiken are not intended as strictly combative systems, but rather, are intended to provide a medium for teaching a range of principles, not least of them reinforcing the basic patterns of body movement taught in this or that group or aikidoka.

As the late Sugano Sensei once said in response to a query about why he didn't emphasize sword (or more broadly, "weapons") as a part of his instruction, "if you want mochi, go to the mochi maker."

This seems to me a much sounder proposition than making assumptions and pronouncements regarding the nature of polearm combatives on the basis of experience with a system of movement with sticks which has been designed to emphasize -- according to its disseminators -- something other than a strictly combative purpose.