Something to consider. The original game was designed out of a tabletop miniatures game. the original "Balancing" if you will was around how much "units within a group" should do in squad combat. This logic has largely been carried over to D&D and not much has ever changed. All of the subsequent iterations were designed (ostensibly) around "Improving" the original rather than making it "more realistic".
So, ranges of bows vs Crossbows or spears are more normalized against each other in "Ranged combat arena" rather than differentiated by capability. And the wonkiness of Crossbows not getting the second action, who knows? Other than someone who likely never used a crossbow figured that you had to wind up the crossbow, so you couldn't possibly do that in the same time as knocking another arrow. Or some such.
End of the day, take it with a grain of salt.
