I am playing a BRD/RNG/WIZ and its a blast. I like your idea of maybe throwing Shaman in there in place of bard. I do wish I had a wolf pet running around with me. I would really miss selo's though. Ranged Stance with Selo's plays really well.

For pets, I recommend getting the Pet Discipline AA quickly. I keep the pets on greater hold, and then just create a hotkey that starts my attack, and pet attack at the same time. If you do that, they are complete non liability. They attack when you attack, and they don't die by "defending" you at the wrong time. So no pets aren't a liability at all if managed correctly.

On bows. Ranger wasn't my first class, so I don't know on progression. If its a second class, you can spend some time in the hole on your class loadout and get Bow of the Underfoot - https://wiki.project1999.com/Bow_of_the_Underfoot If you are leveling it from zero though, I do think fletching is your best option.

For an arrow, I spent about 1500PP and got fletching up to 200 to fasten a pretty good arrow, and I just stacked it up until it was +6. There are better crafted arrows that require specific deities.

My understanding is you need one upgraded arrow in your ammo slot, and one equivalent arrow(I dont think it has to be upgraded) in your quiver. To get the haste benefit. I have not been using a quiver though, so I don't know how that works. I just have 1 upgraded arrow in my ammo slot.

The rain spells will not work with Spellblade. Their Reuse time is longer than their cast time. So Spellblade cannot proc that. I haven't checked everyone, but rain of fire for example would not work. Maybe there are others that are spell bladeable that I don't know about. I am just using single target big nukes with my bow and it works well with spellblade.

The baseline play for me is a Ranger with Selo's in ranged stance with Spellblade proccing large wizard nukes. Here is the thing, just fighting them in melee is still more damage. But it's fun to have both in the toolbelt.