Bards are able to be a jack of all trades but mater of none. I used a bard in a support role and as the party face during my first playthrough and it was a lot of fun. However if you are looking for a character that is the BEST at anyone thing, the Bard is not for you.
main problem is that you can use only 4 chars in team, i tried archer bard and melee bard both sucks and caster bard compered to sorc or wizzard is no comment or support to cleric or paladin
Again, you clearly have no idea, how to play a bard right - as Zentu said, bards are not for you.
The bard can a bit of all, you described with different characters above -and it's only one character slot - a sorc with dex gloves and friend cantrip will btw never be as good in skill checks as a bard with dex gloves and friends.
crap class is not for me that are useless in my team, my sorc do always 20-35 check in charisma check and 20-35 check for most picks xD xD xD
sorc are better talker than bard and better lockpicker cause cat robe is robe and draconic sorc have 13 starting ac in robes and use it all the time xD
my sorc are specialist in persusions and lock picks from perks
you rly tell me you use robes on your bard ? xD
