He is MM in open-world. Pets are good in open-world even for MM.
No. The guns startle the pets, and rapid fire makes more sense if it’s coming from a gun. Cobra shot - did I stuff a cobra into the barrel? No it was hanging out in my quiver.
Legion wasn’t fine because it established this toxic and unnecessary precedent of each spec being mapped 1:1 to a different weapon type (as expressed by this thread) in the first place. There shouldn’t be “the bow spec” or “the gun spec” or anything of the sort. All Hunters should be able to use bows, guns, and crossbows equally since that’s part of being a Hunter.
As for spears; these should be things usable by Warriors and accessible by Hunters for cosmetic purposes. I picture a cosmetic melee slot that allows the Hunter to show a melee weapon on their back without getting a stat bonus + a baseline Wing Clip for all three specs which either uses the ranged weapon in the animation (as it currently works below level 13) or whatever melee weapon is in the cosmetic slot.