Mith.....great build, as always. I wouldn't bother dropping the Improved Crit: Longbow, it actually doubles the amount of criticals your character threatens and with a x3 modifier and who wouldn't want that? It's one of the best feats for any archer I think. You're right about the below-par number of feats as well, it can prove annoying to say the least.
A Bard / AA / SD was actually my first post in these threads, way back in thread one. I've improved her somewhat since then, the original version sucked, so don't bother checking it out! I did it a little differently from you, going for Bard 8 / SD 10 / AA 22. I wanted Epic Dodge and Self Concealment y'see. Here's an updated version.
Finúviel Sindarin, Elven Sniper (I'd been reading the Silmarillion when I came up with the concept, hence the cheesy name )
Starting stats Str 12 Dex 19 Con 10 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 13 (she only gets 3rd level bard spells anyway)
She's got 12 Int so she can get Discipline, Spellcraft, Hide, Move Silently and Tumble maxed out. She gets an extra 2 skillpoints per Shadowdancer level, so it works out that these 20 extra points end up going into Perform, which doesn't need to be maxed anyway. You can shift points out of Con into Str if you want, but I like the extra HP.
Pre-epic she goes Bard 7 / SD 3 / AA 10, giving a BAB of 17. She takes 7 more levels of SD, getting Epic Dodge at level 27. Then she gets the AA levels up to 22 before taking Bard at level 40 to max out her skills.
Feats 1 - Dodge 3 - Mobility 6 - Weapon Focus: Longbow 9 - Point Blank Shot 12 - Weapon Finesse, Toughness or Called Shot (I took Toughness) 15 - Rapid Shot 18 - Improved Critical Longbow 21 - Great Dex 1 24 - Great Dex 2 (->27) 27 - Epic Dodge 30 - Great Dex 3, Epic Weapon Focus: Longbow* 33 - Self Concealment 1, Epic Prowess* 36 - Self Concealment 2, Great Dex 4* 39 - Self Concealment 3, Great Dex 5*
Annoyingly, Self Concealment isn't in the list of Arcane Archer bonus feats or she'd get Self Concealment 5. 30% isn't bad though, especially combined with Epic Dodge. Her final AB with mundane bow & arrows is 27 + 4 (feats) + 12 (Dex bonus) + 11 (AA bonus) = 54/49/44/39, which isn't too shabby. Bard Song raises it another +2, as can Cat's Grace if you get a lucky roll. Her much-maligned archer HP is actually ok, especially if she gets Toughness, which I prefer to do. It works out as 32d8 + 8d6 + 40 = 344 i think, I could be wrong.
The bard / shadowdancer / arcane archer is always going to be a fun character to play, however you do it. The imbued arrow DC gets really high too, the only AA ability to be any good IMO.