If Engine A makes 100ft-lb and B makes 50 ft-lb, according to you -- B will not be able to spool up a cable that weighs 100 pounds with a drum that is 1ft in diameter where A can.
But you are forgetting transmissions can be used to multiply torque. If A makes 100 ft-lb at 100 rpm - then it can pull a 100 pound weight up 314 ft per minute using a 1ft drum. B makes 50ft-lb at 1000 rpm it can gear down with a transmission and pull up that same 100 pound weight 1570 ft per minute. Or gear it down further (ignoring added friction) and pull 500 pounds of weight up at the same speed A is pulling up 100 pounds.
By the way 100 ft-lb at 100 rpm is 1.9 HP. 50ft-lb at 1000 rpm is 9.5 HP.
As Larry said earlier, you really can't separate torque and HP in the real world. Question is where & how much do you want to have the torque in the rpm curve.
By the way, a horse can pull a single bottom plow with 150 pounds of drag at about 2.5 mph. Works out to one horsepower. Funny eh?
Aww what the h3ll, I pursue it further since I got nothing better to do at the moment.
Engine A: 100ft-lbs @ 100rpm
Would pull a 100lb weight up 628ft in one minute using a
2' diameter drum, or would pull a 200lb weight, 314ft in one minute if you were using a 1' drum.
Engine B: 50ft-lbs @ 1000rpm
Geared with a 2:1 box to give 100ft-lbs @ 500rpm would pull the same 100lb weight 3140 ft in one minute with a 2' drum.
Or would pull 200lbs 1570' in one minute using a 1' drum.
Point being, the torque is what you look at to see how much work it "can" do. In both of these examples, engine A and engine B are geared so they can do the SAME amount of work.
HP is where you look to see how fast it can do the work. In these examples, Engine B has 5x's the HP, do it can the work 5x's faster (or pull the weight 5x's farther in the same time).
If you gear it so the higher HP machine can lift 1000lb weight, you can ALSO gear the lower HP machine to lift the SAME amount of weight. Therefore the work that they "can" do is still the same. AND, the higher HP machine will STILL be 5x's faster because it has 5x's more HP.