I think that most of the modern tractors are pretty darn nice and reliable, just have to figure out which combination works for you. With regard to my blower i think it does a pretty good job of scraping, i don't have the hydraulic rear blade as i don't do commercial work. Just tonight i was looking at the cutting edge on the bottom of the blower and it is not perfectly straight as it is a relatively thin section flat to the surface rather than perpendicular like the hydraulic edge would be , am thinking about a double thickness edge to replace it. the blower is about 900 pound so it scrapes pretty well, i am sure the rear edge would be even better. On mine it may leave 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch of snow depending on the surface.
The snow you drive over does not seem to be the issue, its the snow that got driven on earlier and froze. I think that they must do an acceptable job as most of the purchasers of rear pulls are commercial and they sell their product as higher quality than plowing.
If you want ,check out plow site and in the heavy equipment section check out a thread titled:" switching to a blowing service". These are commercial guys using rear pulls because they can generate more income.
