Wow, these posts are bloated. Thanks, Talya.

Read Simulacrum. 500 GP per HD of the simulacrum, not of the original creature.

Read Bloody Money. I don't have to pay for the simulacra. Not really.

As for buying wizard services, that's not the ranger winning. We know this.

For the numbers game thing, I don't know about optimizing wizard AC. I know he can match all but ~12 of the ranger's dex. He can carry all the same items for init, too. Wearing some armor with reduced ASF (Arcane Armor Training? Maybe), using Limited Wish to buff the AC of the Buckler and Armor. When all is said and done, the Ranger shouldn't have 100% to hit.

Hammer the Gap is actually a seperate argument. If you want, I can crunch the numbers and give a numerical objective level of how good/bad it is. 18+10+6= 34 dex, with a 14 bonus, 20 BAB, +5 from weapon sounds good, right?