joachimM, I agree, and I think it's weaknesses get over stated sometimes. But, I think there is SOME truth to the conventional thinking. To me, it's NOT that BL doesn't have good compression STRENGTH, because it does. It's more like, for how stiff it is, and how dense, BL is slightly less compression ELASTIC than it feels like it SHOULD be. I hope that makes sense. It's less about how good it is, and more about overestimating it, just barely.
I don't have a lot of experience with osage, but some of the BL I have worked actually seems stiffer than the osage I have worked, but less tolerant of bending, and it will fret where some other woods just take a little set. My record of success with it is higher than other woods, too; I have finished nearly every BL bow I started, and only mulberry treats me as well.
From experience, all of this goes away completely, as you say, if you just make that limb a tiny bit thinner back to front. The guide in the TBB seems spot on to me here: making BL bows 1/8" wider than osage. I've made some (to me) fantastic 66-70" selfbows with BL that were 1-5/8"-1-3/4" and barely on the fat side of 3/8" at hunting weights. The fastest shooting bow I have ever made was a 64" bamboo-backed BL deflex-recurve, MAYBE 1-5/8" WIDE, with big recurves and rattan string bridges, at 52 lbs. That BL slat was some QUALITY wood, quarter sawn, beautiful and dense, a but only 1/4" thick when I started.
Its just great stuff.