My neighbor had a knotty 54 inch spruce tree taken down that was threatening his house. I bucked it for him and we moved the rounds into his yard (one at a time in the bucket). I doubt I would have liked lifting those rounds up over my body to get them onto a horizontal splitter. We laid them out like so many tiddlywinks, put my splitter into the upright position, and I would drive the splitter foot (a railroad tie iron) under the rounds in place and we busted all those rounds on the ground. I built my splitter to mount on the end of the box blade. So, even if I can't move the round, I can move the splitter instead. The round in the picture is only about 28 inches. But many of the bigger rounds I deal with here are not round like wheels and can be pretty lumpy as well. They would be difficult to get in place with a lift. My splitter is balanced such that even with my light wimpy old body I can tip it either way. Anyway, this setup has worked out very well for me.
Once that round was quartered, the pieces were easy to lift for horizontal operation.