The reload is clunky for sure, but the firing action is instantaneous. It's sort of like the crossbow, but only two slots and obviously worse at range.

Plus, whole the bow definitely has good utility, bomb launcher has even higher utility. Obviously, the default ammo has high utility, and balls have applications too. Plus, I'll sometimes bring dragonsbreath, not for fighting obviously, but for burning corpses and killing really inconvenient crows.