Rangers melee weapons are the "Knifes", one can be equipped in each hand. We're actually looking into a solution to make shields less effective for other classes other than templars too for balance.
This is a cool idea, and something we might do in the future to give people more options. I'm also thinking that shields should be slightly "nerfed" on rangers for better class balance. But we've a few more systems we want to get finished before the team can focus purely on balance.
As far as the boring item issue, stats on all items have been normalized while we work on finalizing game balance, so in the future items will be more "exciting" for sure.