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Redhorse - it's not necessarily that clear cut.

I could easily argue that many peoples around the world made bows a certain way because the way they made them was the only way they knew how and/or because of materials limitations. That holds true (in my opinion) across the world, and it includes relatively simple selfbows and more complex bows too.

Not all 'advances' in archery as we see them retrospectively were a deliberate attempt to introduce greater performance.

Many cold climate peoples made complex bows due primarily to a shortage of the more usual materials we would expect folks to be using. Designs altered to try and make gains, but I would argue that many times gains in stability and longevity would be of equal or even greater value than that of arrow speed.

My own hunting bows are all longbows of various sorts around 55lb measured at 30 - 31 inches. You can easily translate that down to a 28" draw, and I always shoot 31 - 32" arrows made either from shop-bought or my own Sitka Spruce shafts with my own broadheads. I can shoot much heavier but this is my comfortable weight and I have proven time and again how effective it can be in the field.

This is hardly an 'efficient' setup by anyone's standards, but I have successfully hunted a lot of small and large game and even had complete passthrough on several ocassions where the arrow has gone right through a deer's chest cavity.

There are a lot more reasons than pure performance for making bows a certain way. I would suggest that a great many sinew backed bows (for example) were little more than an exercise in producing a stable shooting bow that would last over time from materials that would otherwise be difficult to make any sort of reliable bow from, rather than an overt attempt to increase arrow speed.

You make some interesting points but ultimately most bows had one of two roles to play - they were either for hunting, or warfare. Sometimes they might be both, and once in a while they might be deliberately ceremonial, but most of the old bows were made for hunting and if your available materials and the way you have been taught to make a bow lead you to use specific manufacturing methods and designs I think much of that can be explained as a "that's just how it's done" mentality.

Looking at some of the more complex primitive bows that survive in collections around the world you don't even need a crono to know that they were not necessarily built that way to shoot faster. There are a lot more potential reasons behind design complexity than arrow speed.

Ota: very nice bow - it has a beautiful arc both braced and drawn and it is bows like yours that make me seriously rethink my absolute devotion to longbows. Thank you for sharing