Flamestrike
Legend
A DM is well within his rights to do a lot of things. Whether or not they should is beyond the scope of this conversation. I mean, I had a DM say that since we were low on rations, we had disadvantage on all rolls until we got something to eat. Was he within his rights to do so? Yes.
Should he have done so? Well, considering it wasn't our fault we were out of food in the first place, and that it caused the entire session to devolve into a slog where we struggled to do anything...I don't know. I don't see how it added any fun to the experience. Especially once we finally scrounged up food and were able to rest, and the casters prepared spells to create food and the issue never came up again.
A DM is well within his rights to ignore tracking ammunition or rations as well because he thinks it's mindless bookkeeping. But yes, if you want to make it much harder to play a Dex-based build in your game, using variant Encumbrance will certainly do the trick.
That doesn't really change my question though. I mean, I guess I could revise the question to "are ranged attacks in 5e too good in a game that doesn't use variant encumbrance or house rules", but I could just easily ask "are they too good in a game that allows Feats"? Or multiclassing.
I've never seen ranged attacks dominate in a game I've ever played in though.
Scroll down a few pages, and there is a thread where I literally ran a 14th level SS/ CBE/ Archery style/ hand crossbow Battlemaster fighter with a +3 Bow or some such and there was no issue.
He did tons of damage of course, but lacked any battlefield control, or tanking.
In fact, in that game, the casters were already getting hit pretty hard as a consequence, but they had a melee Rogue and a Paladin/ Cleric to tank a bit (plus peace domain damage transfer to take up the slack) thankfully.