Yes they were very slow but I think it was a design choice to show that Geralt has superhuman reflexes and reacts very fast compared to the average human. I didn't like it, the TW3 approach of making Geralt actually look faster is what I prefer.
Spinning is one of the worst things any real combatant can do, if you were hoping for 'realistic' combat animations then all Witcher games fail in that department because any normal human spinning/showing his back is quite simply giving his enemies a 99% chance of killing him(barring something like a riposte against a single foe), in the case of Witchers the very reason they can do it is because of their superhuman reflexes.
It's why they're such efficient monster hunters compared to your average human because they can keep up and surpass the speeds of most monsters, their entire fighting style is based on pirouettes, half pirouettes, feints, parrying. Spinning is NOT a sane technique in actual combat for any human to perform and yet despite TW2's rigid 'solider' like animations, Geralt does spin a lot.
CDPR has their own team of combat experts and they're advising on exactly that so while I may like to think my knowledge on medieval combat is slightly above average, I can certainly not match theirs so I'll let them decide what's best.
(The only thing I miss is the lunging attack from TW2, maybe it's been discarded for damaging multiple foes instead so that's cool.)
Eitherway, it's too late for the design to change anyway but by all means, discuss away.