The unrewarding state of physical ranged

[Rai_Takara]

Not really, ranged, casters, and melee all compete for the same 4 spots of a full party. If a ranged job isn't up to snuff then you can easily replace them with a melee job, but you can't say that about replacing tanks and healers with dps jobs regarding savage level content since the former needs 2 tanks to deal with tankbusters, and the latter is extremely difficult if not borderline impossible to solo heal in E11S and E12S

They don't. That's why the 1% buff exists. You can't omit a role without a penalty. That penalty, along with reduced LB generation is far worse than having a lower performing DPS (better to bring that 25th melee for that 1% rather than replace him with a 75th caster).

Ranged compete for the ranged spot.
Casters for the caster spot.
Melee of the melee spot.

The 4th spot is a free slot. This usually goes to the higher DPS of course, like caster or melee, but ranged isn't uncommon. Regardless, every role has a spot secured.

Mitigation? Casters and Melee have it too

You surely must be joking if you ignore that ranged DPS is the only DPS sans healers that can mitigate damage regardless of type and without needing a boss to target. Feint is useless 9/10 so even that isn't something melees can count on.

The ranged role needs something impactful to make it worth taking other than some welfare 1% party stats buff.

The 1% is impactful. Bringing us for the 1% is exactly the same as bringing us for mobility or bringing us for some one off skill like MP refresh. In fact, more impactful because unlike a ranged who refuses to press their support buttons, at least the 1% is guaranteed regardless of player skill.