The one advantage to deflex at the handle is that you can make a bow shorter for a given draw length yet still keep wood strain fairly low. The disadvantage to short bows is that it's harder to get a decent amount of reflex (tip setback) because of the shorter limbs.
This bow for instance is 56" long and tillered to 28".
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v355/Marc-St-Louis/Composite%20Bows/Hickory%20backed%20Osage%20Recurve/100_0353.jpg)
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v355/Marc-St-Louis/Composite%20Bows/Hickory%20backed%20Osage%20Recurve/100_0346.jpg)
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v355/Marc-St-Louis/Composite%20Bows/Hickory%20backed%20Osage%20Recurve/FullDraw.jpg)
Even though it turned out well it's actually too short. Performance is very good but a longer bow would perform better, better durability as well. In this case I had to reflex the limbs from the fades right out to the recurves just to have enough tip setback for tillering, that's so I would have some reflex left when finished. This created problems while tillering the bow, a lot of reflex near the handle causes stability issues. With a longer bow I would add less reflex near the handle with the majority of the reflex from around mid limb out to near the recurves.