Good choice on the class =) You've already heard that scouts dish out the damage so I'll leave at that, cus they do. As to the question about the "Ranged" combat. I think I can answer that... IT RULES lol, seriously arrow nukage is awesome if you go Ranger.
I still spend the majority of my time in close combat duel wielding, but jump out when my ranged abilities are all ready to go, and dish out amazing damage... so much so that I'm able to draw agro near the end of the fight if I'm not careful.
You'll also find that faster is better when it comes to your close combat... go with 2 daggers of some sort. I've seen other Rangers + Assassins + Rogues use the higher damage spears, but you get less hits, and therefore less poison proc's. Over time the faster weapons are going to do better (I use Steel Daggers at lvl 24). You'll still hit for very nice damage with those, I have a highest hit for 327 (feel free to check out my toon's achievements, he's on Permafrost) which was rated 120 as far as the server was concerned yesterday.
I hope this helps ya a bit, goodluck!