Overpowered, underpowered, its all a matter of the vision the developers have for the game, for classes/jobs and for the battle system

You can look at trends though. For instance... offline console final fantasy games always make ranged attacks weaker than close range melee weapons. the people in the back row would do less damage but are in a safer spot and in turn, get hit for less... The strongest things in those games were always some metal melee weapons and magic spells

For their online counterparts, SE decided to change up the system, which isn't always a bad thing... and give ranged attackers damage that is on par with and sometimes surpasses the melee DPS, while still being able to remain at a safe distance from the MOBs annoying AOE attacks...

Is that overpowered? I don't know....
I think they've made it easier to use this ranged strategy

But...

You could also try stunning, paralyzing interrupting the MOB and drain/lower their TP making it possible for close range MOBs to get in close without fear of being destroyed.

Another thing to keep in mind, right now although Archers are in high demand.... A party of Archers that have only Archer leveled wont be as useful. Battle regimen hinge on having weaponskills from multiple classes. So even if its an archer in the party... He will be most useful if he can throw Doomspike II or Victimize II or something like that into the regimen

I guess what I am trying to say is, I can see both sides of it...
It really does bother me that someone who has just pugilist to 50, for instance, is detered from entering