> in melees: two weapons sword + javelin (would probably work with Q too)

It does. It even works with selecting the javelins directly. I agree that in many situations a certain combination of weapons is better than another. I disagree that one would always perfectly plan ahead and always select the weapon set that is best. It is easy to say, after you died, that the combination of x and y would have saved you and it is just the fault of the controls which did not let you select y quickly enough. But it is not easy to prove that you actually would have had y on quick select at the time.

> sword+sword

That never was an advantage (and why should it?).

> the lanterin (or in the future maybe torchlight) + shovel

There is no reason why a lantern should not work by not having it in the inventory. Adding the need to have it selected really is just something you might want to do simply to accommodate an otherwise not so great control style.

> sword+shield

Yes, that is really a sacrifice we made. I agree. Oh, well. I did not actually came here to nit-pick on your examples. Just bear in mind that we had the two-hand system for a long time and had plenty of time to discuss and test it. The points you are bringing up are not new and neither did we really overlook those when deciding to switch controls. You yourself say that even MastroLindo (whatever authority he is) drew the same conclusions.

First of all, sorry for being so frank, but I do not see an actual 'approach' presented by you. After years(!) of discussion, play-testing and decision-making I feel not obliged to take a suggestion on control styles serious without it including actual control assignments. So in fact an explanation of how this new approach will work in practice. What buttons do I need to press / what actions do I need to take in order to select things into my 'right-handed' slot. You say the main reason to abandon it was because it was difficult to select stuff for right click use (and that was one of the main reasons but not the sole one). You had to stop and move your mouse to your inventory overlay, select stuff with right click and so on. That was very awkward to do in arena games. You had to run to a save position and carefully take your time to set everything up. You fail to mention how that situation is improved simply because after having read your post, I still do not know how that process of selection would work, button-wise. Therefore, there is no telling if it really is advantageous. Take Maikel's suggestion (which I really like) for an example.

Now, the other thing, another main reason why control were changed, is that throwing stuff was very weird to do. Throwing things was done by holding shift and pressing the mouse button. While it does sound good, it was not. Throwing became a move you would have to stop for. Again, take your time to do it. It was very impractical to apply in an arena situations (and seldom done). In settlements, you sometimes wanted to throw things upwards and that was horrible to do. Because pressing up, maybe a directional key and shift and mouse left on the same perfect time is hard to do. Throwing things, something many would call a key feature in Clonk, was not easy anymore! Your comparison with other games is flawed in this respect because these other games do not implement throwing as an actual gameplay feature.

When your key point is that having two items shown on the clonk looks good, I agree! I actually would like it if the 'Q' item (following Maikel's approach) was shown on the clonk.