FWIW here is a discussion about how bards absolutly SUCK in 2000, and not once is it mentioned that they can solo using AoE out of almost 100 complaints about how bards suck, and counterarguments about how awesome bards are.
https://web.archive.org/web/20010124...ML/000262.html
the down side is it sounds like mez resist should resist at least 50% of the time on extremely green mobs, and that charm should break often. But dont put those fixes in lol we are just about to get bards that group on green99 lol