I do think that range on new character's starting archer units can be handled apart from archer range issues in general. I *think* it would be fairly simple and quick to make it so that everyone who starts a character with an archer unit automatically gets R4. Much more than anything else mentioned or to be mentioned in this thread, I reckon.
That point made, regarding archer range in general... yea, I think most people reckon "greater range means an extra round of shots before getting into melee". Thus, more range = good, always. Or, an extra round of shots if you can outrange the enemy ranged troops. In any case, more range will always be better, because if you want the archers to shoot from closer, you can just deploy them closer to the front. A purely R3 army vs a purely R4 army would suffer from 1 wasted round of attacks, after which both forces will have exactly the same range penalties, thus putting the R4 army (or R5) at a clear advantage. When facing melee, greater range can mean more rounds of shots at the infantry without getting any hits in return.
Managing multiple range values gets... complicated. A hassle. Because you typically want your archers on the same line, because otherwise they block the view from each other (unless I'm interpreting things incorrectly). So that one R3 archer unit moving ahead of all the other R4 units... is causing more harm than good, because that increases the odds of the rest of them then wasting a turn to move up, when they could have kept firing otherwise, thus wasting the whole lot a turn on each unit.
R2... urgh. By the time a R2 unit gets to shoot on enemies, odds are the next turn they'll have infantry in their faces. Best case scenario, almost all, if not all of their shots will be penalized by "must shoot carefully into melee". It's pretty useless.
I'd be fine with eliminating R2 archers. Maybe even making all archers R4. I'm not sure it really adds anything to the game, other than making the odds of getting a truly good RC smaller than they otherwise would be.
Similar arguments could be brought for MI and SF, though. I rarely see people build SF of range less than 4, if they aren't melee. People aim for R5, even R4 is kind of looked down upon, though at least those match the best ranged archers. MI, I've never really thought less than R3 was worth it. With R2 or less, you may as well just hire infantry, in my opinion. The one round of ranged shots they'll get is not worth the loss of effectiveness in melee they get for all the other rounds.
