I agree. Compounds can be quieted down a bunch with all the gizmos, but longbows should still be quieter. I'd suggest bumping your brace height up about 1/4 - 1/2" and seeing what that does. Might help with the handshock a bit too. If you've been shooting plain carbon arrows, try adding weight to them, or try wood. Wood arrows, I think, are a lot quieter and more pleasant to shoot than any other arrow.
Another thing, arrows that are overspined are a lot noisier than properly spined arrows. When they're too stiff, they'll make a loud clanking noise as the tail end of the shaft slams into the bow.
A longbow will never be as shock free as a compound due to the compound's greater mass - not to mention all the stabilizers and rubber stuff you can mount on it.
There is no shame in switching around a bit and playing with the wheels some. Heck, I even play around with crossbows when the fit takes me.[8D]
I used to switch back and forth between traditional bows and compounds all the time, at least for tournament shooting. I can count the number of times I've hunted with a fully rigged compound on one hand, and have a few of fingers left over, but tournament shooting is a different critter.
I'd usually carry a recurve, longbow and a couple of different compound setups to a tournament, see who was thereand then decide which class to shoot. In the early-to-mid 80's, if you shot anything but a compound, you usually didn't have any competition, and that wasn't much fun. But I was alwaysready if another traditional guy showed up.
Also, whenever I felt like I was having a form issue with my recurve, I'd shoot the compound to get everything squared away. I'd still be doing that if my shoulder hasn't gotten so bad I can't even hold a compound up for more than a few shotsany more.
Sure made the compound seem easy after shooting the longbow for a while, didn't it.