Currently, it appears that you cannot make more than 1 attack every two seconds, regardless of the source of the attack, if the attack generates an attack animation on the attacker.
This means that folks like MA's are hosed if they try to use weapons, which Funcom keeps telling us are supposed to help us.
Our fists already DO the max attacks per second, and thus, any 'extra' attack from a weapon must 'replace' a fist attack. Since the MA weapons generally do less damage than fists, they're a negative, not even counting the IP's spent to use them.
The same would apply to anyone using dual wield fast weapons.
Could we maybe have the attack animations only generate from the current primary weapon (the one whose attack value is being displayed), and probably from 'special attacks' like brawl, while any other secondary weapon attacks do not animate the attacker, but DO attack, and do only the 'hit' splat on the target, and the sound effect?
Note that brawl, and other special attacks, are also part of the 'only one per two seconds' of any attacks, so they also 'steal' regular attack slots if your attack is already fast.