nightstalkerpoet said:

However, I would like to say that there is a difference between hand to hand combat and fighting with a weapon, simply in the fact that your limbs are always there, prepared to be used in that defensive method. With a weapon, it is important that the person on defense actually have their weapon drawn first, so as to block the initial attack.

Point well taken. But I think the argument could be made that, given the technology of the particular weapon in question (i.e. a laser sword, capable of activating/extending - literally - at the press of a button, almost instantaneously) and the wielder of this weapon being of supranatural reflexes and ability, the necessity of having the weapon drawn is marginalised.

In Jedi, even, Luke has his sabre 'sheathed' (and again, Luke is personifying, here, this pacifistic Jedi tendency in not seeking to overtly assault Vader) but is still able to counter Vader in good time, when he lunges at Luke after commenting that 'it is unwise to lower your defences' (the aggressive Dark Side definition of foolishness, perhaps, but not the quasi-Taoist Jedi understanding - wisdom for the Jedi, as I contend, is actively not acting by drawing the lightsabre, but in fact lowering one's defences).

And even if it is more realistically acceptable that a lightsabre be activated in order to then better adopt the defensive, I would still want to say that the symbolic imagery of the Jedi standing unarmed, with the Dark Jedi bearing down on him (communicating their appositional methods and beliefs, and deepening the interpretation of the Force and the Jedi path) is too effective to be curtailed by realism.