A view on what's true melee from a veteran D2GM pvp player

OP is confusing gameplay facts with meta-rules.
WW was, is and will always be melee in D2. The fact that some "melee" tournaments forbid it for balance reasons will never change that.

Truth is, you have been so involved in your D2GM pvp player experience that you were completely focus on it and forgot about the big picture.

WW is melee. It was banned not because it wasn't melee, but because it offered an unfair and long lasting initiative issue with other melee skills : with WW, you always hit first and can flee while hitting. That's an initiative issue, not a range issue.
Same with paladin charge, etc.

The argument here between melee and ranged is petty seeing as its a commonly accepted diffidence in combat through out the gaming world.

Melee attack simply means to directly strike and opponent at ranges generally within a few feet, unarmed or with weapons.

Where as ranged attack would be the inverse. However to avoid confusion ranged attack means to directly strike an opponent with any means that is outside of the first established range of a few feet or so.

As some have pointed out it has nothing to do with the weapons your using. I can strike you in the face with the butt of a gun, then run off 15 feet and shoot you. look at that i used a ranged weapon in both melee and ranged combat.

Simple is simple, no reason to try and overly convolute something to sound cool.

I only assume now but most likely assume correct when i say smiters where banned from meleGM tournaments.

What "logical" reasons was used to ban smiters? Cant be because not mele because 90% used phaseblade which had very short mele range :p