Cap'n Kobold
Hero
To me the STR bow is a way for a dex character to add "stat damage" to his ranged attack - by applying his or her strength mod to ranged attack (not accuracy)
Personally? No. There is a good argument for Str to hit for a bow, so its either all Dex or all Str for attack and damage.So ranged combat becomes MAD to balance the style vs melee styles, as a bonus?
The imbalance is not from the damage difference when they are both hitting. The imbalance is from the rounds it takes the target to cover the 600 feet to where the greatsword starts hitting.The theoretical superiority of archery to two-handing or TWF to S&B or greatswords to greataxes or whatever else dealing with weapons, styles, and classes that don't do much else but use 'em, is often pretty marginal. 1/2 a point of average DPR seems to equal 'imbalance' when we're on that sort of topic.
Also that for a lot of monsters, melee is their primary if not only attack type so the archer gets to dish out the damage against minimal retaliation. Unlike the swordsman.