The Combat Triangle is the biggest load of bs. Mage by itself can't do anything end of story. Range can own both mage and melee if used properly. Melee owns range and mage as well, so the combat triangle is imperfect.
YES! I can kill people 10-15 lvls above me with just range. i seem to do a lot better with range then i do melee and i'm maxed melee and only 96 range. and you can go pk with only 300k worth of equipment+inventory for ranging but if you go melee thats millions right there. i've seen lvl 90's hitting 60+ with range like they were nothin but i rarely see a meleer even over lvl 130 hit 60's with godswords, AND range attacks faster then melee. RANGE > Melee
Range is cheap, fast, effective, and is easier to train since you just need to train the range lvl where with melee you need to train att and str to be any good.