Am I the only one that has noticed this?
Whenever I find some cool orange swords they're 90% of the time worse than the regular boring plains swords.

What a waste :'(

Uh if you are looking purely at dmg sure but those swords have no sockets or extra effects. Pure DPs is not always the way you win hits. In fact i can think of many fights where the extra abilities meant more than just straight DPS.

I do wish that relic swords and armours were better overall. I find that once you get master crafted Witcher gear, it's essentially game over. No need to look for better. my toon is lvl 37 right now and the Master crafted Ursine swords are still better than the level 36 relic swords that I'm finding littered across the maps. kind of frustrating.

2 of the best swords i have found so far.

With swords like these:
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Ultimatum
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Tir+Tochair+Blade
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Deireadh
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Ashrune
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Devine
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Hope
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/The+Emmentaler

and I feel like I've only been using these two swords all game
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Diagram+Disglair
http://thewitcher3.wiki.fextralife.com/Diagram+Dorian+Sword