First you say this;
Then you say this;
You are contradicting yourself.
If you read the 4e fighter description and think that marking via attacks is the only important thing your character will do - and disregard your combat challenge bonus attacks, your combat superiority buff to OAs, and
all your powers which are STR based and work only in melee/close combat - then I think that counts as not even cursorily reading the class description.
Exceptional ability to contain enemies in melee =/= bad at ranged.
<snip>
Reflecting enemy attacks and heavy armour =/= bad a ranged.
The class opens by saying your character's role consists in an exceptional ability to contain enemies in melee. It then goes on to say that you bash and slice on the front line, wearing heavy armour to keep you safe. And on the next page (but not very far in, because a lot of the first page is a splash illustration) it tells you that all fighters rely on STR.
If you think that this leaves it an open question whether your character will be effective being built as a DEX-based ranged attacker, then we have very different standards for what counts as
giving something even a cursory read.
the 4e fighter will not be fine, unless they fall back in line with the prescribed playstyle. If they try using a bow they will be very nearly useless within the "tightly balanced system" because it expects certain things.
The 4e fighter who tries to use a bow with DEX will be ignoring most of his/her class features (all except the abiity to mark; and the mark won't trigger any bonus attacks). Hence (to borrow the adjective from the opening line of the class description) s/he will not do anything
exceptional.
At low heroic, though, s/he will still contribute damage with a good chance to hit (assuming a reasonable DEX) and the mark will be helpful. A ranger will do better (and obviously so, because of Twin Strike - the mechanical difference between the two builds is not hidden away somewhere).
The fighter's high hp and good AC will be largely wasted in a ranged build, but that's been true since AD&D days.
We can even compare numbers: a 18 DEX first level fighter in 4e, with Weapon Focus bow, has +6 to hit with a bow and deals 1d10+5 damage, for an average of 10.5 on a hit. And marks. An 18 DEX first level ranger in 4e with Weapon Focus also has +6 to hit and (twin striking) deals 2d10+2 damage, plus quarry damage. That's 13 on a hit plus a better chance to land quarry (because both rolls give a chance), so let's count that as 7 damage (about 1.5 times 4.5) to say the ranger's average damage is nearly 20, or close to double the fighter's. But no mark, and weaker hit points.
A 1st level goblin, in 4e, generally has hp in the mid 20s. So the ranger often won't drop one in a single hit, and the fighter has a reasonable chance of dropping one in two hits. The ranger will be obviously better, but the fighter won't be obviously ineffective. If the fighter was in melee s/he wouldn't be doing a heap more damage (a bit more, with Cleave and/or Reaping Strike, but not a heap more). What s/he would be doing is exercising battlefield control.
But this all seems secondary to my point: how can it count as a
trap to build a ranged fighter in 4e, when the class description
explicitly states that the class is intended to be a front-line STR-based melee character? It's self-evident that you won't be exercising battlefield control with you character who
has an exceptional ability to contain enemies in melee if you're not in melee!
Pretty much any 5e character with the same dex as that 4e fighter will be more effective (relative to the system) using a bow than the 4e fighter using a bow. Not just the 5e ranger, and not just the 5e fighter.
Because of bounded accuracy, coupled with the fact that a "standard attack" is not substandard the way it was with AEDU, and other factors, 5e is more flexible in this way.
I thought we were talking about trap options, not flexibility.
The 5e fighter covers the mechanical ground of the 4e fighter, most of the 4e ranger, and parts of the 4e warlord. In that sense the class is more flexible. But that doesn't mean that there is a trap option in 4e of building a ranged fighter; any more than (to use my example from upthread) there is a trap option in 5e of building a 13 DEX leather-armour wearing fighter. The system makes it transparent that both builds are failing to get the best out of the class and the character.
The 4e and 5e 1st level wizards are more flexible than the AD&D magic-user, in that they are more capable in melee. In 4e this is because of INT adding to AC; in 5e it is because if the MU has DEX adding to AC it is easier to get closer to heavy-armour level AC than in AD&D (because of the changes in how armour and AC work together to give a final AC value), and also because you have a +2 to hit and the possibility of using your DEX to attack with.
But this doesn't mean that building your 1st level AD&D MU with an aim towards engaging in melee with a dagger is a
trap option. The book comes right out and tells you that you will suck at melee; just like the 4e PHB comes right out and tells you that your fighter should be built as a STR-based melee-focused PC. If you ignore that advice, and then discover that your PC isn't all that effective, you've not been
trapped. You've run a risk and come a cropper.
