I'm new to the game so I'm not sure how much my opinion matters here but I'm good at understanding game mechanics and as a character that uses STRICTLY only a bow I think mechanically packets are better.
as it stand archers can dish out damage on par with melee focused and caster characters. and we can hit fast enough to make it past defenses like magic armor and poison shield with a hit or 2 before they can be reapplied. If the change was made to arrows, the rate of fire drastically drops to the point of becoming entirely useless if the enemy has a handful of those defensive spells, regardless of how much damage you add to the bows. a way past this would be to give the use of bows a kind of "piercing" effect where they ignore defensive spells and abilities aside from maybe dodge and Perry. Unfortunately this can cause bows to either be a bit under powered do to how slow you actually shoot. or EXTREMELY over powered for being guaranteed damage or effects on a hit. this also has the problem of changing the dynamic and party comps of the game. with this, archers beat casters, casters beat melee, and melee beat archers. setting up a complicated game of rock paper scissors with each engagement.
(if you want me to explain my reasoning on the rock paper scissors model further I will.)
also, from a practicality standpoint, carrying around boffer arrows is not at all easy. my character carries 2 quivers so I can carry 40 packets with me at any given time, and i have a pouch that can handle the capacity. but i would only be able to carry, maybe 10 boffer arrows, do to how big the heads are. and that's in quivers that can hold 30-40 real arrows each, comfortably. and in my opinion 10 arrows is not enough for a prolonged fight or an intense wave battle. they are also far more costly for both alliance and players. the cost of an actual bow and the arrows may make some one unwilling to try a build they might otherwise be interested in.
every one here has touched on the safety concerns of the arrows in one way or another, so I'll move past that for now. but the safety of the bow itself. having an unpadded weapon on the field is dangerous enough, bot to mention people are still going to be using to block adding to the wear and tear of the bow. also, at a maximum of a 30 pound draw weight, I personally can snap the bow back int a drawn position very quickly, and doing so is not good for the bows. all this wear and tear on top of those that might not properly maintain the bow or bow string makes for a very dangerous combination. I'm not if anyone here has had a long bow, or recurve bow snap on them, but it it terrifying and painful. not to mention, when it happens it will result in a lard piece of wood, or fiberglass, plastic flying back behind the archer, possibly into some one else.
in short:
it's less safe.
more costly.
far less practical.
and mechanically mor difficulty.
THAT BEING SAID. I think an actual bow and arrow is really really cool and I would love to apply my real life archery skills to my character. not to mention it sets up a neat bit of advancement in archery that just makes you feel completely bad ***, like firing multiple arrows (provided you prove you can do it safely) and even catching arrows (provided you catch them by the shaft and not the tip). really really cool. almost to the point were I would put up with all the negatives to using an actual bow and arrow.