Really that is a cool idea.
People should be able to use weapons without knowing their stats or value. An appraise skill would be great in this instance - especially in the varying levels you described Chaos. Perhaps also, no NPC should have an appraise skill that we can use - this would let people who have high level identifcation skills charge other people a small fee to identify and appraise their weapon. Knowing the weight of a weapon isn\'t unrealistic, so you should be able to know that exactly. Anyone with a small pocket scale could figure it out. Then you can use common sense for speed - an exremely heavy weapon doesn\'t swing fast - especially if your stregnth. Also you should be able to know the dimensions of the blade - a ruler could discover this. Long weapons take longer to swing... This way we can get a feel for the statistics of a weapon without Speed stats. As for attack power, I think that the attack power of weapons should only have a small difference - maybe weak dull ones hit with say, .5 and really nice sharp ones hit with 3. The attack power of a weapon should have more to do with ones skill with that weapon, than with the weapons statistics. The exception here could be magical weapons, but those should be rare.
The approximate attack power could be in various levels described by general terms instead of numbers: like: Good Quality Metal Blade, should stand up well in a fight. or Brittle Poorly crafted blade - most likely will not last long.
And those should be what is determined by appraisal skills, along with approximate value in trias. Obvioulsy an inexpirenced appraiser wouldn\'t be able to tell metal quality, etc...
Thats just my 2 cents - speaking of values as generalities in words what about a way of sizeing up your opponent for a duel. Something like - Looks Tough, Looks Easy, Probabily about even, etc... It wouldn\'t have to be that accurate. That is realistic, as anyone can sort of \"size up\" an opponent...