Re: Sword-Gloves
I had the opportunity to play with a real pata when I was working at a museum, some years ago. It was fairly unwieldy, but it had a reasonable tang (the tang joined the hand-grip, so the fingers went either side of it. I could see it being usable as a cavalry weapon, used like a Napoleonic heavy cavalry sword (i.e. for skewering, with slashing secondary) but as a melee weapon I think the lack of wrist movement would be problematic.
The weapons curator said that they were used largely for crowd control rather than in battle, so it's quite possible that they were specifically designed to look cool and intimidating.