I'd presume other forms of a melee weapon of sorts blade could still be created. Hell, this might explain why Urahara's is a Cane Sword normally, he could have straight up made his own. And why Yamamoto's is normally sealed as that massive staff.
Also while we're down this tangent, what about the sheathes? People don't normally talk about that particular aspect of the Zan, but from what they display there actually is a connection between both the sheath and the sword in certain special cases. Granted Ichigo's making of a sheathe from nothing is tenous at best since even his shinigami clothes come from nowhere when we outright know those are just uniforms, but there are other weird cases that have nothing to do with him.
Hitsugaya's sheathe for example actively melts when he draws his sword, and Ikkaku's sheathe is a part of his shikai activation, which is particularly notable because his sword he straight up found before he became a shinigami. Hell, Jidanbo's brother even uses it to restore his shikai if the rest of it gets destroyed for infinite ammo, and he's barely a mook in general.
And since we're still on this tangent, how about Jidanbou's axes, and while we're on giants, the hells up with Jidanbou in general? So many unanswered questions. :wacko: