Right, but if we're seriously talking about the liabilities that having a tail has in a fight, then presumably most of the scenarios would involve attacking fro

Right, but if we're seriously talking about the liabilities that having a tail has in a fight, then presumably most of the scenarios would involve attacking from behind. Remember also that this would be mostly quadraped animals too. Legs would have been strong, but likely still arboreally adapted, so a relatively strong upper body as well. In such a scenario, you'd probably attack from behind from a bit of an angle to force strikes from the other leg to be severely cross body. My original point was not that attacking the leg was easy, my point is that a flexible tail doesn't give you much leverage and control and may not be as much of a liability as you think, since if you could access the tail anyways, you probably also had their back.