What is a Ranger,

 but a mismatched pile of special abilities.

The Ranger is a class that no one seems to be able to figure out.  The only other class that comes close to the constant stream of dissapointment is possibly the Monk.  It has had countless revisions both between and within editions.

I imagine that the problem lies with the original concept in general.

-I have no proof of this (maybe some digging over at Playing at the World would turn up some into), but presumably someone wanted to play Aragorn, so we have a class that emulates that character's abilities in Lord of the Rings.  But some of the abilities described in that work are the result of Aragorn's heritage and status, not his day job of running about the woods.  So in addition to the woodsie survival stuff, you also have an odd mix of divine and arcane spells and tricks (depending on edition)

-This brings us to the basic definition of a Ranger: one of a body of organized armed men who range over a region especially to enforce the law; a soldier specially trained in close-range fighting and in raiding tactics.  Honestly, that just sounds like any given D&D character? They leave the confines of civilization, raid dungeons, fight monsters in close quarters, and bring"law" to the wilds

The combination of odd abilities and a lack of clear thesis started the class of on a bad foot.  Then over time, it jut gets more confused. Drizzt shows up as a Ranger who can fight with 2 weapons (because he is a Drow), but that gets folded into the class.  Around 2e they seem to start the transition from folks who tame nature, to ones who protect it.  It is also my personal belief that since D&D lacked a proper swashbuckler type character, many folks looked to the Ranger class to create that sort of archetype, further muddying the expectations of the class.

3e comes along, and suddenly the doors open for character builds, but 2 weapon fighting is still presented as a core concept for the class?  It also gets pushed more into the "Nature Magic" camp than before, and you get animal companions (taking a bit from Beastermaster, which always seemed more of a Barbarian achretype). 3.5 adds the option of Archery, and also some acutal wilderness special abilities, but then dials back the HD, making it seem less of a warrior.  And you still have the long standing issue of a class who's major ability (favored enemy) only comes into play when the DMs plans for it.

4e, for whatever your opinion of it, did try to mitigate some of the issues by giving the class things like Hunter's Quarry and other abilities that synergized with "Special Forces" archetype to give it a niche.

So now we have a class that folks want to be about animal pals, and nature magic, and wilderness survival, and favored enemies, and Two Weapon Fighting, and Archer, and and and....

It cant be all of those things, even if you try to split all the flavors out into different "paths"

We circle back to the question, does it even need to be a class? Can it even be a single class, or should we give some of its stuff to the Fighter, Barbarian, and Druid and leave the title "Ranger" the same way we might use "Thief", "Witch", or "Knight"?