It´s a tricky question.
Archer still has really good defensive stat against infantry and cavalry, it´s not like the base stat have been worse or so. The problem being cost/strength ratio and the high recruitment time/strength ratio. I´m not gonna spend time giving you the numbers but overall it is the most costly infantry unit based on what total defensive stat it gives, and also the infantry unit that takes most time based on what stat it gives.
That have always been the problem with the archer, but with heavy swords or HC that can counter MA the archers have still been a good addition to every deff.
Adding the booster though, the archer bonus is not like the usual 15/15% defense bonus, you can´t get it on daily bonus so you gotta get it from events. It is usually not expensive but it is not available on every event, making it really hard to come by. The only bonus that you can get from the game, without events or buying from packages, is the tribe bonus 8%.
The sword/spear on the other hand, the game usually gives you some 15/15 defensive boosters from daily bonus, and some 5% sword bonus. Adding some paladins there and you got yourself 58% sword and 53% spear bonus. That gives the sword/spear a better defense/cost, better defense/recruitment time and if the attacker use a lot of MA the sword/spear defense will be a lot stronger overall.
HOWEVER,
I have noticed that it is very few players that use their paladins correctly. Coming to .net I thought the paladin play would be a lot more efficient than it is, that whenever a player get targeted the tribe would provide full out defensive paladins everywhere to stop the attacker from doing dmg. This is not really the case, and since mass targeting and mass nobling behind FL is still a tactic a lot of players do then you will take a lot of hits without paladins if you are not able to pp to relocate the paladin.
If you are not able to have the paladin then the numbers are changed and the archer is once again much stronger.
Me, I love paladins and give them a lot of attention. I play w105 and w106, both worlds have archers but only w106 have paladins. Since I use my paladins quite a lot I have 10 paladins with the 4 4 4 4 defensive stats and 9 with 4 4 1 4 offensive stats. meaning that I take most hits with a paladin there, therefore I have 0 archers on w106. If I didn´t put so much effort in my paladins I would probably have more archers, like w105:
On w105 on the other hand I don´t have paladins so the math is a bit different, there I have instead quite archer heavy deff. Also I stacked up some 25% archer bonuses and after that we made even more archers in our deff since the overall stat will be a lot stronger. Archer is one of the strongest units there is when you have the 25% bonus and there is no paladin.
My strategies is often based on having the strongest deff available, despite what time it takes to build it. (which is why I don´t have any HC at all on w106 as well, but that is another topic)
So it really comes down to settings, play style, what kind of tribe you play in and how well you play with your paladins, do you have decent boosters or not, will you be able to get decent boosters or not. Adapt to the current situation to get the most out of your troops. Archer is not dead, but I wouldn´t use it in every situation anymore, like you would say like 50 worlds ago.