I wouldn't mind it, if it was just bad luck. I've had bad luck and been killed before in fights I should have won easily too. One critical hit that knocks you out can be the death of you.
Who knows, maybe that even happened to me after I lost connection. But since I couldn't connect for 10 minutes, I assumed it just slowly bled me to death hit by hit. I do think your character should defend yourself if you aren't connected to the game. It doesn't make much sense, from any perspective, not to. From a gameplay standpoint, its just another safety feature to protect against connection issues, and from a realism standpoint it doesn't make much sense for a character to stand there and let himself get smashed to death.