As others have pointed out, the ranger can be a few different things. I think the class started out as a mix of a few related things, but grew out of control. It actually a good poster child for why I've become even more disenchanted by a class-based system -- I think it's stupid to use classes as bundles of abilities without archetypes, but I've found myself doing so more and more.
I can see where you are coming from, but in my experience with high detail rules heavy point buy systems they tend to make for terrible games. I can think of some ways around that such as character burners, but class based systems have one huge advantage - they enforce breadth of skill that makes it much easier to play ensemble games with everyone contributing.
What I tend to think you are talking about is more the result of bad class design than it is an inherent problem with class based systems.
In my own game, I had huge problems with the Ranger because it was inherently too narrow, and my big thing in classes is, "Could you have a party of 4-6 characters where everyone took this class and they all felt different?" If you have a class that is an animal handling wilderness magic using archer, you've already made so many choices for the player as to what their character was like that the answer to that question is probably 'no'.
So what I did was strip Ranger down to what I thought was it's bare essentials, and that for me was the idea of Hunter - this is someone that specializes in finding and killing particular things. So in this view of things, Von Helsing is a Hunter, because he's the archetypal Undead Hunter. And Jason Bourne is also a Hunter, because he's trained as an Assassin - to kill his fellow human beings. And of course Bounty Hunters are hunters, and so potentially is a police detective - Javier from Les Miserables is a Hunter. All of these ideas and characters open up for the class, if you strip the class down a bit and allow the player and not the system to make the choices for the class.
The thing is, with just a little bit of work, you can make a 'Hunter' into anything that a Ranger can be, either with build choices or by multi-classing. Want to be a druidic paladin? Multi-class into a spell-casting class to pick up some minor spells, or have a sub-class or both. Want to be death on wheels? Emphasis your combat ability and maybe multiclass into fighter. What to be a twf master, well that's basically 'death on wheels' with some particular build choices. Want to be a wilder-rogue, or to put another name on it, a 'scout'? Well, emphasis your stealth capabilities and maybe multi-class into rogue. Want to be an animal handler? Sure, you have the skill set to become good at that and all that is needed is some appropriate build choices whether feats or subclass.
Just imagine if in 5e the core class was Hunter and not Ranger, just how many different new and exciting subclass possibilities that would open up.
As an aside, I've always assumed Aragorn was mostly a Paladin who'd picked up some woodsman type skills. He was after-all in disguise, and the rangers in the story were basically outcast Cavaliers - men of noble birth and blood that were forced by circumstances to live in the wilds. Aragorn spends 2/3rds of the books wearing mail, fighting battles, leading other men into battle, and riding horses. If you read his background, he spent most of his life as a 'Black Knight' - his disguise in more civilized lands. Consider also that Aragorn has the ability to 'lay on hands', as any good medieval High King would (thus the 'hands of the king are the hands of a healer'). I've always felt the Ranger class was a really bad translation of what Tolkien was going for, obviously inspired though it was by the book.
