Just want to make sure that I didn't leave the impression that I didn't realize that there were many things that could influence the 30ft limit. All I meant was that in a typical encounter where the archer was at 30ft, the there would normally be someone that could reach the archer in response to the attack immediately. If the range was 45ft, then typically, there would not.
Anyway, I'm honestly not a nay-sayer on this. There have been lots of people that have been trying to increase the 30ft limit on ranged sneak attacks to 60ft or 90ft at very little cost. That I do have an issue with. Using a feat to increase to 45ft is not too bad (unless used underground where the archer has 60ft darkvision and the targets only have 30ft, but I'm sure there are examples of where things get bad in the present rules).
IceBear