Try being an archer with a melee guy bearing down on you. Game play crippled for one side, but not the other. Different play styles different roles, different ways of fighting....
Expected response.
If you don't have a melee weapon ready for when that time comes, that's a choice you made. If you do, then you have plenty of opportunity to fight back. You're still limited only by your personal skill. You may be at a disadvantage against someone who is built specifically for melee, but as an archer you've built plenty of agility. You can take a fast melee weapon and if you're a good manual blocker, you stand a really good chance in a melee duel.
Basically, when a melee reaches an archer, they move from 100% dominant predator to somewhat disadvantaged. It's far far far from a total reversal.
You know who has it worse, as much as people whine about them? Throwers. Pure strength based. You have to invest a ton of strength for throwing to be worth anything, you have to get really close to have any chance of doing much with it, and you run out of ammo fast. You run and attack slower than everyone else. You stand just behind the front lines, blow your load, and then agility-based melee fighters tear you apart.
I've split my character equally between agi/str and wear mid-range armor. Against a pure melee fighter, I literally cannot do a damn thing without help. I can block a dozen attacks and never have an opportunity to strike back because they just swing that much faster than me.
But I'm alright with this. I do really well in group fights where I can land some powerful blows if I'm aware enough. I have a large effect on the initial clash, even though I don't typically survive it. Outside of that, I have a ton of trouble. That's the role I built for myself.
What pisses me off about the archer mentality is they seem to think their class deserves more payoff and less disadvantages than everyone else. Dominant at range and capable in melee. I think it's BS. So I'll be switching to archer so I can relax and pick on people from a distance, and then have exciting duels with the outrunnable softened stragglers who break through and challenge me.