You can use any equipment you meet the level requirements for, and learn any skills you wish. Even for a warrior a bow is quite handy at the start of the game (to draw opponents to you rather than rushing into the middle of a group, and let you get a little bit of damage in first). A mage can use a bow until they have enough mana to just be able to rely on spells, or while waiting for the cooldown time on spells. A ranger or mage can use melee weapons if opponents get too close, though both have other options for close range attacks (Splitting Arrows or Firewall).
Leaving Farglow means you can no longer change which initial bonuses you want, but there are no restrictions on how you develop your character.
On the Xbox you can equip a bow and melee weapons (hold a button/pad direction down for a second to assign an action/skill); whenever you use an attack or skill that requires a certain type of weapon, your character will automatically switch, if needed.
Playing a warrior in D2:ED I assigned X melee attack, A range attack, Y Rush Attack, B whirlwind, left Dragon Stone, right Dragon Morph stone (both after getting the battle tower), up Heal (level 1 comes in handy) and down summon creature (after getting it).
