Pathfinder Conversions done so far:

[Nihilarian]

I'm not going to say yay or nay on the matter of sword techs at level 1, but I'd like to say that despite the designers best efforts, the Paladin has always been an offensive class. In 3.5 this was because the Paladin simply had difficulty filling any other role than DPR effectively. In Pathfinder the Paladin got kicked up a notch and can fulfill multiple roles, but in the end that smite still gives them up to +20 multiplicative damage and the ability to get a horse and lance.

Charge-adin, ho!

On smite: I'm not terribly attached to it, so I'd have nothing to say if the DM decided to replace smite with sword techs. Nor do I mind keeping it as-is.