Alrighty, here's some info.
When the first patch was done, this was broken for all bows. You would go through the animation to shoot, but no missile and you didn't lose an arrow. Other players reported not seeing my bow, but my mace instead, while i saw my bow and its animation.
The fix patch resolved this issue for most bows. I don't own a Rus, so haven't tried.
On arrows going through people:
I think that the animation is not showing the actual flight of the missile when not zoomed in. You can watch the arrow flight go right through people and not a thing. However, if you zoom in, the arrow hits where it flies.
So, non-zoomed archery = fucked -------zoomed archery - correct.
But I still think arrows are flying through people with no effect, and possibly disappearing as i cant find them on the ground afterwards.