The other differences were that brigand poachers had the Bullseye perk and were able to hit you more often (now reverted), and the Bullseye perk was more generous (so that marksmen, who presumably still have it, were even better at hitting you than before), and all character backgrounds started with higher ranged skill (probably including enemy ranged fighters). On the first beta releases, I kept recruiting a thief who always started with the same name, stats and talents in each campaign, but his starting ranged skill had been reduced from 41 to 39 on the latest release …
There’s no difference to the intrinsic damage or accuracy of any ranged weapons (except a little more damage by throwing ones from 2 tiles for those with the mastery perk).
I think ranged weapons were always capable of causing injuries if armour and/or hit points were low enough; it’s just that it’s more noticeable if ranged enemies are more numerous and/or more skilled.
