the fact an archer will almost always have a target on the field that he can fire at without risking hitting a team mate, which is what he should be doing.
Sorry, but that's just not true. Take, for example, the end of a round. You (the archer) and one of your team mates, a peasant, are still alive facing one two hander wielding tincan.
The tincan engages the brave peasant. The peasant turns out to be a reasonable blocker (recently retired player maybe) and manages to stay alive for 30 seconds whilst desperately blocking the tincan's swings. Maybe he even gets a hit in himself.
Should you
not fire at that tincan? Ofcourse you should! You try to manoeuvre into a favourable position but not shooting at that tincan, even though you risk hitting the peasant, is just stupid.
Reflective damage for ranged is lame and it will not fix your 'problem'. People will still get teamhit by ranged, but now it will suck even more because the ranged tends to drop dead at odd moments due to reflective damage.
In short, reflective damage sucks.