Thanks for posting all of those, Vandoo! It's great to see them in views that show how they were put together.
AFAIK (and I haven't built an atlatl yet), there's a bit of a functional difference between most Australian woomeras and the thin-shafted atlatls from elsewhere. With a thick woomera, it's effectively a lever, and the thin-shafted spear acts as a spring. With the thin atlatl, both the atlatl and the dart act as springs. This double-spring (think of half a bow pitching an arrow without the bowstring) helps propel the atlatl dart further than it would go by simple leverage. The figures on the Papuan atlatls are probably there to help tune how the atlatl functions as a spring. Basically, they fiddle with the weight and stiffness until the spear really flies far.
Best,
F
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