You can dodge-cancel, though; every attack except for a couple heavies (which are already getting their own dodge-cancels in the next version) can be canceled as early as halfway into their animations. I've already made several action games where you could instantly cancel out of every frame of every attack, so I wanted to try something a little different this time.
So, if you want to dodge more, use light attacks. If you want to stagger enemies more often and do a bit more damage (once you've learned their attack patterns well enough to be able to handle the extra commitment), use heavy attacks. I thought it was fairly standard action game stuff, but with how many people have spoken out about this, I guess I got it wrong. Learning experience for next time, I guess.