Enhanced bow range is useless?

I was playing through Shrine of Amana earlier today, and since it was an SL1 run, my options were pretty limited. I wanted to just snipe everything to death with poison arrows, but it seems that poison arrows don't work when you don't meet the stat requirements for the bow. The only bow that I could use was the short bow (while also using the work hook and Cale's helm), and since the short bow has reduced range, I had my doubts about its effectiveness as a sniping tool.

Once in the field, however, all such doubts were removed, as the short bow consistently hit its target from long range. At one point, near the area with the hippo beast, I sniped an enemy mage, and the mage disappeared after being knocked back a little bit. Figuring that this must have been due to the game's draw distance, I walked closer, and sure enough, the mage reappeared. After doing this several times, I could no longer get closer without drowning, so I had to go around through the house. That's when it dawned on me: I was sniping enemies at draw distance with a bow that has below average range.

I literally couldn't hit anything farther away than that. I tried to fire arrows at the spot where the mage was, but they simply hit the wall behind it. I walked within the enemy's draw distance, and sure enough, it was right there, but the arrows went straight through that spot to no effect when it wasn't visible. Given this, there appears to be a maximum possible distance from which it is theoretically possible to hit something, and that distance is covered by the short bow. Given that, is there really any point to bows having above average range? The only ranged weapon I've used that appears to have finite de facto range is the light crossbow, with 35 range, so and even they have significant range. I haven't specifically tested anything with 40 range, but it appears, at least, that 45 range is enough to hit anything in practical terms.

Is that really true?

EDIT: I'm playing on Xbox 360, so maybe PC has a longer draw distance, but I could barely see the enemy from that range, so even if the draw distance were infinite, sniping from farther than a short bows maximum range would be really impractical.