Back when I had tons of time to play Runescape and my range pure got banned I made a new pure. I decided to do an obby maul pure for the same reasons you have. After a little while I trained range so that I could use rune knives with my obby maul as it is a pretty good combo. From there I did some attack for granite maul and then mage for ice blitz.
I was going to be an obby mauler too but I realized it would only be fun when you're 99 str and higher level, level 32-40 ish is boring, no loots and you risk more than everyone.
I'm going to be a gmauler.