Ive found with high amounts of dex the chances of hitting increases dramatically along with maxing the skill as well as your chances increasing when you are not the one taking the damage. Far as stringing in combat unless for some random ass reason someone felt the need to change that you can string while in combat as I have a trigger in my old files for it.
Basically the things you have to do in order to stay above any melee weapon just plain isnt worth it, you spend more time in preparation then a MM or SC and the advantages are only worth it for PvP as the ammo supply to stay consistent with the nuke damage is extremely low.
However it is nice to have an archer that can kill 2-3 levels of HP on certain healing enemies even with shoddy eq if you can get the right hit in.
