Valeguard stride will improve with mastery points AND it stacks with other movement speed.
At level 10 you will be able to kite a bit better with withdraw, and even better still at 14 with stun and snare. You should be able to very easily get even cons to half health before they even get close to you by then. EQ ranger sucked originally and couldn't kite AT ALL. They had no ranged skill attacks except for an incredibly slow, relatively low damage auto attack with their bow. Not being able to buy a weapon and armor from the vendor any more probably hurts though I suppose. The gear was about 1/3 cheaper than it is now - it's now priced out of a new character's means. Ask someone to craft you a good longbow.
PRotF ranger is insanely better than the EQ ranger IMO.
Even if you multiplied, starting from 5% is almost nothing. The druid, for example, whill have movement speed buff of like 30-50%. And I am level 10, AND used withdraw AND sprint, and the snakes were on my heels the entire time and biting them. I was not burdened. They are just MUCH faster than you are, have no limitations like endurance to run out of, all while attacking you while THEY are running, even though YOU can't attack and sprint at the same time. Against those snakes, I could NEVER get a ranged attack on them, because they were too close. I am FORCED to stand there in melee to fight them straight up, which Rangers are not equipped to do. You WILL die. And these are con Blue. The ranger is just an extremely weak solo class. Even in groups, they are not that strong, especially considering that you have to keep leaping all over just to maximize your damage, which can also put you in hot water with drawing other mobs.
And I played an EQ ranger. I know their ranged attacks sucked. But they were actually an off tank class, so at least in melee, they were relatively tough and could reliably fight blue cons.
I crafted a good longbow AND arrow. I crafted armor. None of it helps much at all. In fact, I have seen no difference between being naked or wearing armor. And not to mention that the dropped gear ends up being better than most things you can craft. Which is similar to most other mmos, which is telling you that crafting is a waste of time unless you're making bags or potions. Even the food in this game sucks, because all it does is give you a small stat buff. At least in WoW, food and water replenished health and mana.
I think a problem you are having is player related and not class related. Keep practicing, because you CAN sprint and attack at the same time. I admittedly also played my ranger with a pocket SHM, so I always had skymane's pact and wind strider, which allowed me to attack a little faster and sprint a little bit longer but not that much... another helpful tip is to melee facing an incline once the target catches up, so when something like a skeleton casts bonespike, you can withdraw WAY out of range, then engage after popping off a couple ranged attacks, and run back up the hill again to rinse and repeat. Withdrawing on a hill creates a much greater distance. Also practice sprinting, jumping, and spinning with your right mouse button mid-jump, and THEN withdrawing (while facing the target - you auto attack while in the air as though standing still - learn the timing of your bow (I use my sound) to create way more distance too (being sure to face the other direction again before landing). Elevation really makes a big difference with withdraw.
I can agree with the insignificant difference in wearing armor to being naked "compared to the tanks", but that is tweaking of numbers that will change over the next couple of years as opposed to skill based game mechanics. The EQ ranger had no level restriction on gear, so if you started in Kunark (like a majority of people) you could equip a full set of Ivy etched chain armor and a couple short swords of ykesha for like 10g and be an unstoppable tanking ranger up to like lvl 30 - because the armor mitigation was very balanced by that point in the game.
Add: The ranger (like other classes) is still not even complete, they will be getting more abilities similar to the druid once the druid's abilities are done. It was said that the ranger (and shaman) will also be getting SoW (movement speed buff) at a lower speed than the druid (but there's a good chance that they will also get a snare spell along with their trap).
I've got a friend (not good at games but loves to play them, not hating, just saying) who 100% wants to play this game if the ranger bear is good. Unfortunately, he's hoping the bear will do 90% of the work for him, but he's a fan of games with a single strong pet that he can 'one click that's it' with.
I showed him the classes one day and he wasn't at all interested until he saw the ranger and the bear. To quote him, "There's something epic about just being a dude with a big a** bear as a pet."