Well, I agree, сrossbows still have bonus against armor but… if there is too many situations where this is so critical? Even very presice crossbow fire unlikely to win a day in battle against big group of heavy orcs (against unarmored ones bows is better). With goblins its better have bows (its possible outshoot them with good marksmen). With wolfs and ghouls too. With zombies may be crossbow little better, but they are not too big problem anyway. In cases with necromancer its way batter have bows (he can be shoot very fast from afar). With regular bandits its way nicer to pick their skirmishers with bows. Crossbows can be good against some heavy humans, but ocasion is rather rare and there are shields anyway.
May be its good idea to have your shooters have BOTH perks for bow and crossbow and 2 packs of equipment for any situation in storage. But anyway with bows now you have only rare and situational drawbacks, with crossbow lack of distance is always here.
Also there is goblin crossbow. Interesting if mass-armed. Buts its kind of wierd (and rather hard) to farm it.
Unique weapons are good in all classes, but I think getting them is more luck and flavor then something to tie up your builds in “regular game”. Is more like fun “post-end-game” collector experience or something.
One day beaten by orcs I become to think about some kind of macedonian/swiss answer : ) spears and pike formation with agility defence/adrenalin focus for dps. But is hard to get. Good base stats (more likely swordmasters needed) and tonns of patience to level them up in optimal way.
