@Kurt, I sincerely apologize if I came off as condescending. Wasn't my intention.
You are correct in that the archery industry is in a way returning to something it got away from. We're circling back, and it's interesting to look at how that happened. The fast arrow, huge mechanical craze was in my mind just as silly as the current argument. Both sides of the coin have pros and cons.
Fast arrows "solve" trajectory issues. The arrow gets to the deer faster. Less time for stuff to happen. It flies flatter. Less penalty for misjudging distance, and you can reach out to "five more yards and I would have had him." All good things, right?
Mechs "solved" problems. It's easier to get good arrow flight without fletchings on the front of your arrow. Big cutting widths mean you might hit an artery or vein that you'd have missed otherwise. Good things again.
Of course, there's always a trade off, and a happy middle ground. "Speed kills" was a marketing slogan, not a cold fact. High IBO speeds, low GPI numbers, huge broadhead widths...most people agree that those numbers are mainly there to entice customers, not to kill deer. I'm just saying the same holds for the flip side of the coin. Marketers use numbers to help people make decisions, and in archery especially folks seem obsessed with numbers. I have always been intrigued by that, and frankly disagree with the emphasis on it. I think it's trivial. That's all I meant to say.
I think modern archery equipment is phenomenal. So phenomenal that comparing a 400 grain setup to a 600 grain setup is like comparing a .308 to a 30-06. Sure, the numbers look different on paper, but the chest cavities look the same.
Congrats on your buck. He's definitely substantially bigger than anything I've killed. 200lbs live weight is a big deer down here. 150 is closer to average. I'd still fling any run-of-the-mill arrow/head combo at a 250ish buck at 40 yards and in and feel good about a shot that landed in the basket. Maybe I'd be disappointed.
As far as losing those animals, each one had it's own story. I genuinely think they were all my fault, but I still think about them and draw blanks as to what happened. Maybe I should have quit shooting, but they're a fairly small percentage of the animals I've killed. I believe that anybody who's never lost a critter is either a liar or somebody who hasn't shot a lot of critters. Stuff happens. I've watched deer run 500 yards with their lungs hanging out of their bodies, and I've killed deer DRT that I was amazed died at all. Stuff happens...regardless of what your arrow looks like.
TL,DR not trying to be a jerk, but I think folks get caught up in the number weeds. Held off on saying it as long as I could, probably should have stayed quiet. But I believe most arrows will kill most deer most of the time, and the gains you get playing with the numbers are fairly trivial in the grand scheme of things.