I've seen old bowhunting movies with the likes of the great Fred Bear and Howard Hill that showed some of the most unethical shots at big game animals I've ever seen. More than 100 yards with just a poke and hope attitude????
How the heck do you think our modern ideas of bowhunting ethics were developed, anyway?? They were out there doing the hunting and the shooting, learning what worked and what didn't, laying the ground rules and getting bow seasons established.
Don't go making the foolish mistake of blasting the sport's pioneers and applying today's ethical standards to what they did, way back when.
If you really want to corrode your sensibilities, read Maurice Thompson's book, "The Witchery of Archery." See what the attitudes of bowhunters were like in the last quarter of the 19th Century.
It is interesting to know that Howard Hill killed an elk with an arrow at over 200 yards with a longbow. Makes one wonder just how much energy that arrow had left when it got there. Assuming he was using a bow in his usual draw weight range of 80-100 pounds and the size broadheads he recommends for different bow weights in his book, the 2-blade head on that arrow was 1 1/4" wide and 3 3/4" long.