Just attempted this myself. Can I assume that the time in-between your character sitting there with drool leaking out his mouth and the time he actually holds up his weapon to block gets shortened by increased weapon skill?

I don't think that's affected by weapon skill. However, with Gothic 1&2 blocking and attacking is very sensitive to what action was performed just before, and the timing with which the next action was initiated. Some attacks (and blocking) chain well together with the right timing, while others can't be chained (requiring you to wait for the character to go back to his default stance). Trying to initial an attack or a block too quickly after a previous movement, attack, or block basically disrupts all action, and you have to wait for the default stance to again be reached. This also happens if you wait a little too long. The end result is that if your timing isn't quite right then it can seem that the game isn't responding well to the controls.

Well, I tried a good many times and the blocking was definitely working BETTER than usual, but Kharim is simply too powerful in chapter 1 for most of what I was doing. I could block his initial onslaught, get a hit in, block the second wave of swings, get one swing in, then after that my character refused to block after the swing and Kharim demolishes me. (This did not happen once or twice, mind you, I fought this guy at least 10 times)

I eventually ended up going into the castle and beating up Bullit to get his sword (40+ damage) and with my 105 strength I managed to two-shot Kharim xD which really says something about the responsiveness of the blocking command that it was more viable to do that then to simply try again.

If you don't care much about honor, you simply can lure him towards that ruined shack with some meatbugs near it, then jump on it's "roof" and get Kharim on low hp with a bow / spell, after that just simply finish him with you sword.

Also, if you want the most powerful one-hander in the game, you should "kill" Scar and get his sword: 85 DMG / 130 range / 70 STR required.

Lol, I think I got too caught up in wanting to beat him in melee (after watching that video) and it didn't occur to me to fight him logically... xO

Ah, yes, I got that in my last game, but this guy is actually going to be a two-hander (it seems like there's no way to learn two-handed weapon combat early on though...). Also, is there even a good way to beat Scar without getting everyone pissed at me?

Get inside castle, talk to Raven, but don't talk to Gomez.
Start attacking Scar, and if others don't react, get out of the room (only if you can't manage beating him up - they all will chill) then get inside again. Scar will not use a healing potion in the meantime.
Repeat.

It might take a while to figure when it's safe to keep attacking him, but it's nothing complicated, I assure you.