The weapon hit knockback, I'm cool with, It should definitely do that. (Though I could do without the ragdoll corpse flying so much farther than a normal knockback when you kill them.) The parry knockback is a different story. When you perform a perfect parry you shouldn't be penalized by having to reposition and hope you can swing again before the stagger expires.

Never once had anything spawn in right behind me. Sounds like you just aren't being situationally aware enough.

I do really wish they would fix the verticality of the game. If your knife passes through an enemy it should hit that enemy even if they are a pixel above or below where you are standing. It's even annoying when it happens to enemies, it's no fun beating them b/c of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game design.