Re: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
The reason they are there is to mirror swords with hilts to stop clashed swords sliding down and slicing off the hands of a wielder, but considering there are non-lightsaber bits on the side they could easily be cut off.
Personally I'm inclined to agree, but at this point there's really no evidence that they're even an intentional part of the design (or that their implementation is intentionally this poor, anyway).