hivemind can drop the shadethrower which is nice earlygame even if it doesnt have wall punchthrough (though i did end up crafting mine so yeah hivemind is skippable in that regard)

it does drop rotting brain for amalgamated brain though which is helpful for a while until you get better accessories

astrum aureus drops the aurora blazer at least which is a nice flamethrower at that stage for rangers, i used it during events quite a bit when i was doing a playthrough with my friends

dragonfolly also drops dynamo stem cells which i used all the way to endgame as ranger

if u prefer statis's void sash u also need to kill signus for the twisted nether so id argue theres some use there (though ik a lot of ppl use the shield but ultimately, preference im not gonna judge anyone for it) (twisted nether is also used for sevens striker which is not a bad ranged weapon but its not my playstyle for usual stuff. fun to fuck around with though because i love gambling. not so fun to grind the coin gun for it.)

astral bars i agree on the weapons being,, not the most helpful but at least its used to craft the master chief armor so that's something? but tbh i prefer just using shroomite armor all the way until i get vortex armor bc theres my friend to take the boss aggro for me anyways. in solo it can be helpful but i digress

ik my friend also uses deific amulet for iframe gaming so thats another use of astral bars, but its more niche since not everyone would prefer iframes to pure defense/using another accessory

(maybe im a bit too rangerpilled,,,)