I see where you are coming from with the asthetics for Bard, or rather the idea of how it buffs through songs.

Every time I put on a piece of gear, I cringe to myself. I laugh at little every time I pull out my flute to play Foe's as a boss is dropping a 20k AOE on the whole party (cause yeah, playing the flute while all your friends come to the brink of death is extremely apprpriate); but its "meh" to me. A little wacky and out of place, but it doesn't detract from my experience enough to complain.

As a class and playstyle, I think Bard is amazingly fun to play and I like where we are at and what we are capable of doing. I feel like going to a class that is strictly damage with a Bow, while keeping it from just feeling like a bastardized Bard at this point, would be difficult to pull off.