I wondered for a while whether the presence of several hit point bars on some creatures had some tactical value. Sometimes, a dragon loses the use of a leg for a few seconds, but that happened only once for me and wasn't quite worth the effort of pounding it exclusively.
After messing around with my two-handed weapon templar for a while, I came to the following conclusion:
Creatures with multiple HP bars have those not because it's part of an undocumented tactical feature, but because apparently the game's hitboxes - the invisible construct in and around an in-game entity you need to hit for the game engine to register that you hit the creature in question - are all human sized, no matter which creature they are attached to.
That would explain a lot, actually. Consider the dragonling - not really a big creature, but a long one. If it had a single, human-sized hitbox in the center of its body, you'd have a hard time reaching that hitbox from both front and behind with melee attacks that don't have some far reaching AoE, because the dragonling model's length would prevent you from reaching its hitbox. You'd always have to flank it near the center, to hit it where the HP bar (and therefore, the hitbox) is.
As a counter-example, try everyone's favorite ursine menace, the great bear of the Emerald Graves. It is a somewhat long creature when on all four, with a single hitbox in the center. Try a short ranged, targeted melee attack from the front, like Pommel Strike - you'll probably notice that it feels like you're just "sliding off" the bear's front. You're too far away from the hitbox and due to the creature's size, you can't get closer. Flank it, aim where the HP bar is, and you'll have a better time - though general wonkiness can still cause you to miss.
I found targeting my melee attacks a lot easier once I imagined an invisible human sized target wherever I saw a HP bar. 
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