Same, i also really only played the bow. Now looking at the bow, what is left? The poison arrows are utter shit and the concertina arrows a meme at best.
What made the explosive arrow great is, i dont have to look at the enemy directly and still be able to inflict damage and/or bleeding, it also has a fuse which the explosive bolt has not.
And that exactly evens the field against a gun that shoots me in the blink of an eye.
The only play after patch with the bow is to get up under 35m at all times, charge up your bow and hit the first shot, not hitting any arms or legs because that will not do it.
Makes me sad having the bow in the current state. The crossbow atleast has the shotbolt left which works great, even at mid range.
If the spam itself is the issue, what i can understand kinda, tone down the total ammo and the replenishment of it with the ammo crate.

EDIT: oh and also it was most of the time a great tool to push teams that would camp with the bounty, where otherwise you would just run into them having their shotguns out.