In an effort to get back to the original post let's remind ourselves that we are talking about maintaining 2.5 acres. The rest is being taken care of by someone else. I'll lay out some of my thoughts on the subject.
1. If mowing is the primary use I would choose the 2320 over the larger tractors in that series. The mower is set up differently, and better in my view.
2. I wouldn't even consider something larger than the 2000 series since matching tasks is more important than value per pound.
3. Like some others here, I have found my Kubota which is roughly the size of the 2320 to be more stable in most situations than my garden tractor, but not as nimble which is a consideration on hills. Even though it is higher, the wider stance, and loaded tires do make a difference. The mmm will also lower the center of gravity.
4. Though I have little experience with my snowblower yet, I do think that having reasonable pto power, weight, and traction will matter. I moved some very soft, and heavy snow banks the other day with mine, and was able to lug the 19 pto hp down, and ran out of traction with my loaded r-4's more than once. The banks were 2-3', or more high, but you can run into that with drifted snow too.
5. Loader speed is down some on all the "new" models including mine, but it sure hasn't kept me from getting a lot done with it.
6. Steering control with a front mounted blower will be an issue even with 4wd. I used my loader the other day to remove aobut 3" of new snow on pavement, and had trouble at times with the loader in float mode. There was certainly no more resistance there than there would be with a blower down on the pavement unless you had it raised on the skid plates maybe. I sometimes wonder if these kind of issues are any worse, or better with this size tractor than they would be with an X700 series. I do think the full time 4wd on the X series will partially make up for their lack of weight. Others won't share my opinion, but I found that the
BX22 that I had (same as the 2305, heavier, but a bit narrower, and shorter) was just a bit big to be a great garden tractor, and not quite big enough to be a tractor. The bottom line is that in order to gain reasonable loader capability you will give up some nimleness, and tear up grass a bit more when mowing. What you will gain is a more versitile machine which is important if you need to do other things. If you were to poll a group that mowed 2.5-5 acres more, or less weekly, you would find that they probably put about twice as many hours a year on their mower as they do on their CUT. I know that I do. Grass, and leaf collection is important to me along with the mowing and regular snow removal. I love having a tractor the size of the 2000 series, and find that I do a lot of things with it that I wouldn't get done if I didn't have it. Like the previous poster though, if I had to keep just one tractor, it would be something like the X728- X749.
In your position that is the choice you need to make. Do you want a garden tractor for all the every day things, or a "real" tractor for any reason at all............... don't try to justify it. If you want the tractor then buy one that is at least a reasonable compromise for mowing. Some dealers around here have many used mmm's that came off the larger Kubota B series, and they don't sell well at all. Many folks on this forum move to larger tractors, but go back to garden tractors, or ZTR's for mowing. Keep those things in mind.
