that's about the size of it, during my testing at least this is my assumption. looks like the range is applied for picks to destroy/remove blocks but when it comes to reaching mobs there is no effect beyond ranged 1. thus applying anything above range 1 to a sword is utterly pointless... or perhaps i'm missing something that should be obvious

Yep range had a misscalculation and basically negating all damage. That is fixed in the next version.

Next patch should if everything goes well come out today.

Fixed in latest patch