Don't buff melee... Buff Kiting

Hunters are fundamentally a ranged class. I don't think many people are arguing against that.

The melee issue came up as a potential answer to what you do when someone closes on you?

Plate-wearers can often stand there and take it.
Rogues can pop Evasion, or stun and run.
Mages can Blink... and so on.

Maybe it makes sense that hunters, as mail-wearers with some melee specials, should be a little closer to the top of that list than the bottom. We're not saying a hunter should take out a death knight at point-blank range. But maybe if the DK is wounded or the hunter has good healing that you should think twice about always running up on the hunter.

Some of you guys make it sound as if every decision in an Arena is pre-determined. If you fight a hunter you will ALWAYS run up to melee with the hunter. If all of the decisions were that easy, we would all be walking around with Gladiator titles.

Rather, what really happens is that you make a lot of decisions on the fly. You process a lot of information quickly, and those of us who can make the right decision very, very fast tend to do really well in PvP. Maybe I can burst that guy down while he's on cooldown. Maybe we need to switch targets right now. Maybe we need to buy some time until my ability has finished its cooldown.

Arenas are fundamentally not duels simply because there are teams involved, and that makes a world of difference.

I can totally imagine a situation where "run up on the hunter" makes sense somtimes (perhaps the hunter has no healer nearby and I'm at full health and his Disengage is on cooldown) and not at other times (perhaps I am very wounded so I know that a Raptor Strike could actually do me bodily harm instead of being something missing from many hunter bars). Nobody is suggesting "Hey, what if hunters could also be rogues?" least of all the hunters.