don't double post... you can edit your last post if you have additional questions/etc
And, to your questions...
I didn't level that char a lot... only played it till lvl 29. It was nice to bash multiple monsters, but it's hard to kill more than one monster at the same time (only with crit on both of them) and it's even hard to find a lot of monsters standing close one to another...
Mostly, you'll use AoE for trade runs when multiple thiefs summon
If you want an AoE character, go nuker and use Lightning nuke
Bow hybrids are good, but I don't know much Int would be good (i'd say 1 Int every 2 levels)