As someone who detests bard but loves the Ranger archtype i must agree. I rather like the current "Bard" except for the fact its called bard and still has music inspired abilities. I feel sorry for the real bards out there, I had respect for them even if i looked at them with venom seeing my poor archer class being sullied.

I, for one, see no reason a real Ranger couldn't be split off, even if it doesn't directly split from archer. Something has to be done as the current bard is only in name and this tug of war of playstyles will never end. Just splitting "Bard" from the archer tree could be effective also, but that would require a ton of extra work that SE seems to be extremely shy about doing.
While the concept of a healing bard sounds neat, i don't think that would be ideal. I think the Dancer concept would work a bit better, even if it was just a blatant clone as MCH was to BRD in the beginning. (Also I was hoping for the Singer class to be a healer(Think of the DNC, SNG, BRD groups!))

Having the same weapon shape would not hurt a second archer type, they already deal with it on multiple classes. WHM and BLM both use sticks, and previously used 1H and shield. SMN and SCH currently both use books without even differing in animation while using them. Having a Ranger/Sniper use a Greatbow would be a non issue.