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Not knowing much else of the reach rules I've no clue why they're as they are now. Most likely to stop people from abusing them like they did the spiked chain build and improved trip. However, not knowing how the reach rules play with the other rules it's not a deal-breaker for me either.
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It was impossible to abuse the reach weapon rules. Reach weapons didn't just have the extra five feet of reach to attack an opponent (meaning instead of being next to an opponent, you could be one five foot square away from him and attack him). They didn't just have this rule, they required it as an alternative to the other rules, meaning you couldn't attack someone within five feet.
Spiked chain is ruled out of this equation because it is ungodly broken as it does not use this rule in the first place, not to mention free tripping attempts, bonus to disarm checks, AND the ability to use it with weapon finesse, this was ultimate cheese.
Likewise, the attack of opportunity rule was modified for basic reach weapons in that it only worked if they threatened by moving within 2 squares away instead of one (technically it still threatens one square away, but you still can't attack an opponent within one square), you actually have to wait until he gets to the second square.
Standard reach weapons in D&D were a very basic tit for tat tradeoff and very hard to abuse. You couldn't even abuse it if you had whirlwind attack considering you still are required to attack all those who are two squares away instead of one.