It's penalizing a character whose sole purpose appears to be to support a powerhouse character in ganging. And, yet, he isn't totally powerless. He's just offensively neutered. He can still offer support songs in those fights.

No offense to the player, but, it's justifying to me that a true gank character gets clipped like this.

I think the edges argument is relevant but not strong for making bards more playable 1 v 1. The edge that stands out the most to me for this and that is super expensive is swashbuckler for the humans and halfies. You have to be able to survive melee to go one on one. And going one on one as a bard is a finesse game. It takes awhile and you need to get the opponent to commit. While getting your ass-kicked in melee is a good way to get the opponent to commit it doesn't leave you much opportunity to turn the tables.

Do you know what really screws bards? High int classes are harder for bards to fight. And there are more since people tend to play dexy melee classes. Add resist mental preps on that and it's a tough go for bards. Edges are second to this in my opinion.