You can check the bow rigging tutorial at CGMasters http://www.cgmasters.net/free-tutorials/bow-and-arrow-rigging/ . It's done in Blender and involves a few more bones, but the end result is very nice to use. Perhaps some of the things shown here will be of help?
Thanks a lot for the response and the great insights. This is really helpful to better understanding the different caveats of how to do this. Re your comments on link vs position constraints-- being still a beginner, I am a little unclear on the nomenclature and was simply parroting the language you were using, but thank…