Was mulling this over in my head while not doing MMO related things. Why doesn't auto attack simply switch on its own when range becomes a problem? Too far for melee, switches to ranged. Too close for ranged, switches to melee. Certainly hope no one considers this 'skill' or 'difficulty' related, since it isn't difficult to do manually and doesn't take any skill. Just a huge PITA.
The code is in there to identify it at least, since the client knows enough to spam us with too close/too far messages. I guess this also ties in a little with the fleeting 'default auto attack' option we never got. Would be nice not having to macro melee CA's that are subject to lag, or manually switching my attack every couple of seconds to perform fully.