I stumbled upon this thread not two days after we finished our Kingmaker campaign in which we had a Aldori Sword wielder. Something I think that is overlooked is the Duelist prestige class. Our Swordlord was less than optimized but still ran an AC in the 40s with combat expertise (which only gets better with duelist) and had AC in the 50s against AoOs with enhanced mobility. Make it a straight dex build (his str was only 11) and use the Agile weapon quality from the Pathfinder Society Field Guide to add dex to damage instead of str. Also having a decent Int gives you more bonuses to AC and damage with canny defense and precise strike. The only drawback is you lose to higher level fighter feats like greater weapon spec and penetrating strike but he seemed to deal with DR the way a barbarian does (more damage!). food for thought if you care to think about it