I did allocate points to my skills and character traits, though I was extremely unlucky when it came to getting equipment to drop early on and eventually switched to melee and then to magic, both of which felt much more impactful to my gameplay and dropped much more frequently. It got much easier as I got better equipment and a higher level, but the journey to get there was rather unforgiving.
Still I feel that something should be done to improve bows as they are weaker and less interesting compared to melee and magic respectively.