Back row fighters and front row thieves for 1e/2e

The conventional role for fighters is to spend most of the time in melee combat with the biggest opponent and the conventional role for thieves is to hang back and maybe do some missile combat or try to get a backstab.  It does not need to be this way.  (Rogue THAC0 is better than Priest THAC0 to start with but slowly fades and is definitely worse than Priest THAC0 after 9th level)

Back row fighter:  A back row fighter hangs back in combat using missile weapons to his (or her) advantage.  Such a fighter has a high dexterity (for a missile weapon bonus), is a specialist and is probably an elf to take advantage of long bow sheaf arrow damage.  (Other races such as a Halfling with a sling are also possible).  A high strength is always good for a fighter.  This backrow fighter may be further augmented with a kit such as the archer kit from the Complete Book of Elves.  The point blank range rules (for specialists) should not be overlooked should the backrow fighter find himself (herself) in close proximity to hostile forces.  Another option would be to have a staff-sling specialist.  The ROF is 5/2.  The weapon would get a strength bonus to damage.  With sling bullets doing 2-5 plus strength bonus, the damage from 5 attacks every 2 rounds would start to add up fairly quickly.  While the backrow fighter is providing a withering fire from his longbow or sling...

Front row thief:  Front row thieves are also useful as scouts in that the thief can be checking for traps in the lead and not instantly be in dire peril if monsters jump out.  A front row thief needs a high strength, dexterity, and constitution.  Dwarves are good candidates due to the giant class bonus.  If kits are used, one of the more brawling-intensive kits that gets to use any weapon should be selected.  Per the Complete Fighters Handbook (PHBR1) the character could take two-weapon style, and long sword proficiency.  This would let the character dual wield two long swords with a -0/-2 to his attacks (instead of -2/-4).  If the character was an elf he would receive a bonus to using the long sword that would make the attack +1/-1

There a lots of possibilities for atypical characters in 1e/2e.  More ideas in another post.