No no, I know what he's talking about. Yeah, there is a .8 delay, but that isn't what he's talking about. The person who gets hit has a .8 delay and the person who hit him gets a .9 second delay. In theory the person who blocked should have his melee reactivated before the person who swooped at him so that he can knock him away if they are still close to each other, but oftentimes this just doesn't work out. I think the issue is this: The person who hit you gets a .9 second delay to attack, but that .9 seconds is initiated very shortly after he makes the initial blow to you. To hit back you have to stop blocking and hold down melee, but melee only triggers every .9 seconds, so if you hit melee too early (during the initial .8 second delay after blocking an attack) it will trigger the melee cycle but it wont connect because melee is disabled. That cycle will start over again and you'll hit your opponent .9 seconds after that (when your character's melee will attempt another hit). By that time, however, your opponent may have already hit you because he never let go of melee and his cycle just kept repeating over and over.
Yeah, it's complicated, but that is how it would seem to work. There is also the issue of latency involved, especially when it comes down to tenths of seconds between attacks. Right now I'd say... it's random, because you never know when your ping might spike or when who will press melee. Just attempt at your own risk.