I noticed this same issue on Ubuntu 17.10. I didn't find swapping to be this annoying until recently. May be I've switched to swap file instead of partition? But I think it existed even before I did the switched. However, I had never (or at least this frequently) noticed freeze conditions due to swapping with the previous versions. My swappiness is the default, 60, and it should never cause such a condition in a perfect world, I think.
I noticed this same issue on Ubuntu 17.10. I didn't find swapping to be this annoying until recently. May be I've switched to swap file instead of partition? But I think it existed even before I did the switched. However, I had never (or at least this frequently) noticed freeze conditions due to swapping with the previous versions. My swappiness is the default, 60, and it should never cause such a condition in a perfect world, I think.