Not sure, can't really see all the details from here. If you could park it in my dooryard, under the big pine tree with all the lights, before the 25th of this month I'd be glad to put her through her paces for 'ya!:cool2:
BTW, make sure you ONLY run ULSD, ultra low sulfur diesel, ( off road diesel) in that rig, we just had an experience with a new Kioti owner who was using home heating oil, in NH, where they don't yet regulate the sulfur content, and his tractor was giving him some smoking issues as a result.
And with the ranges, if you're going uphill as you described in high, for instance, the pedal and hand throttle will regulate your ground speed BUT the transmission will not downshift, AND you can't shift on the fly- there's no synchromesh. If you loose enough momentum you will have to stop the tractor to shift into medium.
As far as the stop knobs for the levers it makes sense that one would want to stop the blower from getting too close to the windscreen. I would consider leaving them there always and getting another pair to put below the levers so you can set the depth for tilling, bush hogging, etc.