That would be nice, Micah. I like your idea too, Golem.
Now in a counter-response to some people earlier in the thread, I think it's important that the dev's favor realism in ALL aspects of the game when faced with the choice between realism and "balancing".
In my long experience playing video games, meticulous balancing has always dumbed-down games. If every class and every weapon is balanced, there is no longer any incentive for us to create our own unique fighting styles to overcome obstacles. And oftentimes, we actually prefer using a disadvantaged class or weapon because our enemies may not be as familiar with it, and therefore we're able to surprise them with something they weren't expecting.
In the case of archery, I don't see any reason to make archery "balanced" with sword fighting. If anything, I think 90% of players should pick up a sword. That seems only natural to me. This isn't world of warcraft where you get to pick any class you want without any consequences! While archery is harder to master, funny enough, it is not nearly as deadly as a sword. In that vein, it would be more interesting if archery was used only for strategic purposes (ie. raining down arrows before a large-scale siege) OR for specialty purposes, like a bandit raid on horseback.
But I don't think archery should necessarily be "viable" as a dueling class. An archer should not be able to go 1 on 1 close-quarters with a guy wielding a sword (like they do in Warband). Unless that was really the case historically... But it seems implausible.