Thanks for all the replies - I appreciate all the different experienced input. As much as I hate to admit it, Mike is right (ouch) that I'll probably only brush hog the 15 acres 2-3 times a year. The rest of the time will be in moving some dirt around, making jumps for our 4-wheelers & motorcycles /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif scraping the gravel drive once in a while, dragging & pushing burn pile stuff (shrubs, small-medium trees), hauling dirt to flower beds, etc. You know... all that house/farm up-keep general 'stuff'. I'm not planning on going into business with it, digging any huge ponds or pushing over live Sequoyah trees.
Mike is also right that I don't have a work commute - as I tele-commute and have a little slack time now and then... so I don't have to be able to mow 15 acres in less than 20 minutes /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif Price is certainly a factor, so I'm trying to get what I __need__ without breaking the bank. As far as non-needed things, I am going with HST. I have two Crafstman riding mowers - one gear and one hst and I can for sure see where it would make a difference on a real tractor (I hate it when salesman at Sears call a riding mower a "tractor" - HAHA).
Bottom-line, before I starting bouncing things off of Mike here, I was actually looking at some of the grey market smaller things. Then Mike slapped me around a little and I gained some knowledge of parts avail, safety, etc. When you compare all the features, support, re-sale, etc across all the brands in the price range I'm needing Kubota just seems to make sense. I'm certainly not as knowledgeable as most of you guys, though, so if I need to also be looking at the NH or Case line, somebody please tell me.
