House Rule: Melee Damage Stats, Any Opinions or Suggestions? Options

[Ol' Scratch]

I've slowly been absorbing all the new 4th Edition rules over the last few weeks and am compiling a (surprisingly small) list of house rules that I intend to use when I start GMing again. That said, there's one in particular I'd like to hear opinions on from everyone else, particularly if it'll affect anything more than what I've already looked into.

The house rule basially works as follows:

House Rule: Melee Damage Stats
All melee weapons with a variable Damage Value has "Str/2" replaced with "5" and AP increased by +2. Thus your average unarmed attack will do 5(S) damage with a +2 AP modifier, a combat axe will do 9(P) damage with a +1 AP modifier, and a monofilament whip will do 8(P) damage with a -2 AP modifier.

Divide Strength by one-third and round down. This is then applied as a negative value to the AP rating of a melee weapon, improving the penetrating power and thus increasing damage indirectly. Thus a Human with Strength 4 will add a -1 AP modifier to their melee weapon while a Troll with Strength 14 will add a -4 modifier.

Personal Note: Consider changing the Strength-to-AP modifier from 1/3 to 1/2 and increasing the base AP modifier to +3 instead.

Reason for the rule: I didn't much care for the fact that average runners didn't stand much of a chance of doing any damage in melee combat, especially against someone wearing even casual body armor, nor did I care for Stun Gloves and Monofilament Whips dominating melee character arsenals. I also never cared much for the fact that in most games, Strength affects the damage directly rather than improving how penetrating an attack is.

I'm hoping this change will improve things quite a bit all around, making melee combat a little more balanced while still giving strong characters a significant advantage.

All that said, does anyone see anything problematic with this house rule? Maybe other rules I've missed or applications that won't make very much sense?

Thanks in advance.