I feel there have been slight improvements in the past 5 years or so. We have gotten speeds up and managed to tame the recoil and noise at the same time. You used to be able to get a pretty fast bow, but they were not the most pleasant things to shoot. In the past few years I haven't seen them do anything earth shattering though. Not enough to make me want to ditch my mighty might and drop a grand on another bow.

Do we need any of it? Not at all. Like I always tell people, my buddy has been killing deer like crazy with a 15 year old darton with a magnesium riser, round wheels and steel cables. It shoots about 200 FPS with a 400 some grn aluminum arrow and 70 lbs of draw weight. It has about 60 percent let off, feels like smacking an aluminum bat against a telephone pole and sounds like a screen door slamming shut when you shoot it. I have not heard one deer complain about it though and I don't think he misses very often either.

I shot a Mathews SQ2 and a MQ32 in 2000-2001 I think and they were awesome little hunting bows. Felt nice in the hand, quiet and almost no recoil or handshock at all. Were not the fastest bows out, but they were not the slowest either. I really don't feel bows have progressed much since then. Other than getting the speeds up and the other companies have caught up in the recoil and vibration department. I was shooting a darton at the time with the CPS cams. It had a great draw cycle, about the same speeds but had a fair amount of jump and vibration at the shot. The Mathews Ultra 2 felt about the same, but had a harsher draw cycle and considerably more speed with the same set up.

I was a big fan of the Cybertec with the versa cam as well.

Paul