The recurve is definitely more enjoyable to shoot, especially when things are going well. Bad days have frustrated me greatly though. In spite of that, I just bought a used Damon Howatt recurve to give it a go once more.

I used to be fiddling with my compounds a lot, but my present setups are pretty solid and trouble free. Don't need to do much except shoot them. I am much more reliably accurate with the compounds than I am with the recurves, but many guys can do quite well with the sticks. I would agree that $60-65 generally won't buy too much of a compound, but I still have an old Darton Viper that I tried to sell on ebay, and couldn't even get a $50 opening bid. That bow has out-shot most of the newer gotta-have bows that I try to replace it with.

If you already have the recurve, I would start really practicing with it and see how good you can become.

BTW, Arthur, you have become seriously anti-compound in the last 6 months or so.
Are those anal-retentive compound 3D shooters in Texas responsible for that?