RE: topic
I'm running a game with a rogue ranged focused character and a ranger with ranged focus. The rogue is entirely manageable (they usually get advantage from hiding, and usually get sneak attack, but that's perfectly fine. The ranger, though, I often joke that I have to add more bad guys just to offset the damage put out by the ranger. In reality, it's not to horrible, but she averages 40ish dpr a round since 5th level (magic bow, hunters mark, collossus slayer, 20 dex). The party is now 11th, and the battlemaster fighter is just now reaching something akin to parity in damage output with 3 attacks (he can burn superiority to go higher, of course). He's not max DPR, going shield master, dueling style, and using a pick, so he hits pretty often (often has advantage) and does d8+8 with his magic pick per attack, so right in the same ballpark. The difference I see, though, is that the battlemaster often loses an attack or can't make any attacks at all due to positioning. I don't run many fights at long range for the bows, and most start within 100' (most actually within 50'), but that single round or the need to reposition loses the melee fighter attacks. I'm generous with allowing multiple thrown weapons on a single interaction, so he has javelins (2) and hand axes (2) which he throws, and that helps as he often goads with those to control the field, but the ranger archer almost never cannot attack, so she manages a much better damage throughput. And this is without the ranger having sharpshooter (her choice) at all. IN fact, the ranger is built to do much more than just shoot things, and is a vital part of the exploration pillar of my game. If I had a player bring in an actually optimized ranged character, they would far outpace the others in contribution to combat (I'm a firm adherent that killing monsters faster is almost always the best tactical option due to the way D&D does hitpoints).
So, yeah, I see that ranged can be unbalancing to the game, if players feel like they should have fairly equal contributions. If they don't, or you, like me, have players that aren't that interested in optimization, then it's not much of an issue. But if there was a fix put in to "level" the field, then likely my players wouldn't notice. I will say that I nerfed sharpshooter earlier to remove the -5/+10 and add +1 DEX, so that may be why it hasn't been that attractive to my ranger. The rogue took it first chance, though, but mostly because that players HATES taking penalties in any form and would have taken the feat if it did nothing other than eliminate cover OR range penalties -- either would have been sufficient for him to take the feat. Heck, I could have made it two separate feats, one to eliminate cover and the other to eliminate range disad, and he'd have prioritized those feats anyway.
Long and short: I clearly see that ranged CAN be very destablizing to a game. Telling people who have this complaint that they should just change the way they play to accomodate the way the ruleset allows this is a bit annoying. Pointing out "hinderances" that really aren't is also a bit annoying. I don't have much of a dog in the fight other than to say that the rules do allow it to be out of hand, but that it's a specific table issue.
Don't get me started on the borkedness of sorlocks (a violently broken combination -- xd10+x*5+x*d6+10 ft pushback @ 600 feet range for the cost of 5 levels of Warlock and the spellsniper feat (either pushback OR 600ft range for 2 levels), up to twice a round AND synergizing with other area spells like wall of fire? Nope, not a cool combination.
And minions are right out.
But those two existing and be more egregious than the martial ranged vs melee disparity doesn't mean the ranged disparity doesn't exist or can't be an issue for some tables. All of them are rules failures.
We may not have a lot of reason to expect archers to be 'overpowered' but we really shouldn't be too put off by it even if it works out that way, the expectation of relative equality is not something D&D has much fostered over the decades. 
