Since you're hell-bent on playing a ranger anyway, here are some things to keep in mind:
If you really must play a ranger, but you can wait... at least wait until Velious so you have Panic Animal as a soloing tool, and the class XP penalties get removed. You won't be so wrist-slitty.
Okay, if you're reading further, that means you can't wait. Here is what you need to know:
As you already assumed, the ranger hate on this server is incredible for the reasons you already mentioned. If you intend to group, then join a family-style guild who won't turn you down for a group because you are absorbing more of the XP in a group of similarly-leveled players. This will make things easier on you. It also helps not to suck, because on a very small server, that reputation will precede you.
I wouldn't even bother going STR/DEX right away (or maybe even at all!). People aren't inviting you to groups for your DPS anyway... if they wanted DPS, they'll get a monk or rogue. And the DPS increase will most likely be marginal and no one will know whether or not you're using STR/DEX gear but you. What they will notice is if/when you gain aggro (or take damage while pulling), how much of a mana drain you are on the healers. For this reason, as someone else earlier pointed out, I would tell you to go AC/HP/STA gear.
In fact, go /anon, get all mithril/silver plate gear, with Watchman's Boots and a Hammerhead Helm, and sell yourself as a tank. :P I'm partially kidding, but if you can twink yourself up enough with your necro, you will actually be a fairly decent tank in old-world EQ. You will hold aggro over a warrior, and you bring a lot of decent utility/crowd control/pulling abilities to the group. It's when you get to Kunark that the mobs hit a little too hard for you to tank anywhere near efficiently without some massive upgrades in gear.
People telling you that you CAN solo as a ranger mean it in the same way they would tell you that you CAN stick your penis into a meat grinder. Sure, you CAN do it... but it's extremely painful. There are some level ranges and areas where -- with Ebony Bladed Swords proccing a mana-free root so you can back off and heal yourself, or some other gimmicky tools -- you can kill a blue con mob. Then you can sit and heal up and go for the next one. You'll want this to be mainly outdoors areas with an escape plan in case things get hairy, and you'll want to tag melee mobs only.
Bow-kiting IS an option, yes... but lets be real. Even if you fill your inventory with fletching components, you can probably slowly bow-kite a dozen mobs before you're out of arrows and need to go find a fletching component vendor. Use it as a last resort to finish off a mob, do not plan to use it as your primary form of soloing. First of all, your archery skill will suck, so you'll miss a lot. Secondly, as someone else mentioned, until you can grab a Wind Saber out of Sebilis, you're probably going to take forever to kill shit. And then run out of arrows doing it. At least with a Tolan's Bracer, you can self-sustain without having to find a mage or run back to a vendor.
If you're looking forward to raids, you'll be spending most of them telling necros how many boogeymen are up on track so they know when to make up excuses to log off. In Hate and Fear, you can be secondary crowd control, and in some cases, puller (Harmony rocks, but there's zero margin of error on a pull). People make jokes about rangers eating DTs, but with the pet nerfs, pretty sure that's going to be mages after they put down some mod rods.
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It is difficult to know that we will most likely never see Luclin on this server, so EQ/AM3 will never happen for us. The best we'll see is Trueshot and Weaponshield discs, and those are in Velious. So you REALLY have to love the class in order to continue on as a ranger with the odds against you here. And hopefully, if you love the class, then you will do the rest of us the honor of playing it well.