Right. Also, at close range, your throwing weapon will make a check against your swordsmanship skill. If you only have throwing, I think your damage output may be affected depending on your proximity to your target. However, if you have both throwing and swords, you will be able to use your throwing weapon as a sword - thus, no loss of damage.
Now, the distance-based damage system was introduced with the early implementation of the throwing skill. In light of this (plus the shield/hci factor), I decided to never use throwing and haven't followed developments to the skill since. It could be that the devs have changed throwing so that it is not affected by distance and I simply didn't read about it.