This, but if they are not to be nerfed then what will reduce the amount?
Good question. I fear I can't answer it as shortly as you'd like, but I'll do my best:
The main reason for going ranged is most likely fear of having to fight in melee. It seems much more likely to kill fighters like Bjord, Teeth, Tor, Chase and all the others by ranged than actually defeating them in melee. (Side note: I don't consider backstabbing cav as melee, and due to the rising amount of cav in the game we can assume the motivation is the same: no need to fight those skill monsters).
The second reason would be missing flexibility. Ranged fighters can attack anybody, even against shielders they have a chance. But melee can't pick their targets, and some of them, like horse archers and ATH cruthing archers, are literally unkillable. That's not what you like to have in a game where you are supposed to... kill everybody?
So I would decide to go for making melee more attractive. One idea I had and am repeating over and over on the forum was replacing battle mode (= round based team deathmatch) with a conquest mode, where you have to conquer and hold the majority of three or five flags for a certain time. This objective is accomplished best by infantry, and simultaneously the need to kill archers or horse archers is reduced. And perhaps it will finally stop that retarded Rambo-Lemming-autowalker behaviour, most infantry players are sticking to. A bunch of organized infantry is much more difficult to kill, and the frags of archers and cavalry would lower, making those classes less attractive again.
That's my solution, and it doesn't even contain a nerf. Perhaps it will even lead to a slight buff of archery and especially cavalry again, because on the paper the classes are really UP.