I actually quite like the long range of bows given to archers in SoV and Three Houses, I feel like it opened up the archer to being a lot more involved in tactics since I always felt that archers had to be used very conservatively in combat to avoid being rushed by the enemy.
Hand axes I never found to be something that replaced bows since bows give the advantage of being effective against flying enemies. While hand axes have their uses, they also tend to generally be much less accurate and more used to give specific units additional range, rather than as a competitor for the bow.
That being said I think I would like for archers to generally have the weakness of not being able to directly counter if attacked from a range of 1, since being vulnerable up close is one of the things I felt always defined archer units and makes the tactical decision to use them go hand in hand with the proper placement of archers. Maybe as a skill for individual units to have it'd be nice, in addition to the 1 range bows the series already has, but I'd refrain from allowing them to counter direct attacks.