Exploiting chinks in armour was a job for specialist armour-piercing weapons (warhammers, rondel daggers, etc), not fencing blades.
Neither early gunpowder weapons nor fencing swords made armour obsolete; mass armour for infantry was standard up until the dawn of the Napoleonic era, and armoured cavalry lasted through that. There was a lot of heavily-armoured pike & shot stuff between the Crusades and Napoleon.
Armour didn’t really disappear until gunpowder weapons became reasonably accurate, several hundred years after their introduction.
My kids compete in Kendo, which they took up in Japan. I did the same when I was young. I also briefly competed with the saber when I was in High School. It just did not have the same appeal to me as Kendo did.
My oldest is now trying to figure a way to get into HMBIA.
This is what happens when you live a house full of swords and armor.
