Pred spear as a throwing weapon-
come on guys, where have we ever seen any kind of functional throwing spear, javelin, dart, arrow, etc made so that the two halves are symmetrical? It won't work. The head has to be heavier than the tail or butt, or it won't cast well. Just go and try it. Try to throw any evenly balanced stick as if it is a javelin. It doesn't work, at least, not very well. Try to shoot an arrow with no head on it. Try to fly a model airplane with no weight in the nose.
Kevin Peter Hall may have been able to grasp the thing nearer one end in his other hand (being a great actor with an intuitive sense of how his character should move), but he had thick rubber gloves on, and he only had to get the shot, not actually fight. The weapon itself is patently designed with a short hand-grip in the middle (too short to get any decent leverage with two hands) and symmetrical extensions coming out of either end, both covered in hooks which look cool but render changing grips difficult if not painful.
The designers either didn't understand weapons or they knew that if the weapons were too practical, they would also be too recognisable, familiar and seemingly ordinary, and therefore wouldn't serve the character. Certainly Stan and Co were masters of serving the character.
Ironman- I'm not convinced that choreographed light sabre-fighting in a space opera counts as evidence for how real weapons work.