I love the spear! I would've starved without it early on, because I couldn't hit deers with the crude bow. Now I have a fully upgraded ancient bark spear and it's such a great feeling to be charging trolls head on finally, instead of kiting and bulletsponging them. At least the blue ones. The trolls with stars are tougher again.
Spear, mace, bow is my core arsenal. Hardly ever use the sword or two-handed weapons, although, as I'm still collecting more iron I do carry iron sledge around in swamps.
Only downside of the spear is trying to hit "shorter" enemies. Necks, boars, perhaps wolves, but I'm not there yet. Spears really don't deserve the bad rep they have.