The more dice you roll, the more centralized the results and the more pronounced the bell curve, right? So rolling 5d6 would have a more pronounced bell curve than 3 d10? Just curious.
Anyways, I have debated making a combat reolution mechanic based on Demon's Souls, where damage is at a set amount, and all defenses are only damage reduction to varying degrees. However, that game judges attacks hitting on the player's skill, being a video game, meaning the weapon you are using and the attack animation (time of wielding the weapon, how it swings or stabs, etc.) are the only variables that matter besides skill.
But such a thing I fear would devolve into the realms of thac0, with chance of hit based upon what kind of weapon you use. Big weapons take a lot of time to wield, may have a small hit area, but deal a lot of base damage... It really becomes whether you can guarantee yourself a hit with skill, or if you want to use weapons with a high base chance of hitting and put skills into other aspects of character creation...