SwampThing, I had to retrieve three shortails last season, including my good friend's, and this has been the third time in as many seasons, due to failure with his surface drive (Briggs 35 MB Hyper). With more complexity you get more chances for things to go wrong. I like the simplicity of the LT- but I am not simple minded.
We've gotten stuck in that Hyper real bad, where I would have turned back earlier with the LT. In that beached condition on a sand bar, reverse or a winch would have been useless. We had to drag that sucker out- if it had been a .125 mud hull, we would still be dragging it. In these parts, the mud hull does not need to be standard equipment. I know in fact, that a conventional ouboard on a regular jon hull can get into most duck hunting areas down here, provided you do a couple of things to prevent a clogged intake. When it gets real shallow, an airboat is the only option and I've gotten stuck real bad on those. Elsewhere, I could justify plunking down 5-6K on a mud hull and that much again on a surface drive but I like my economical slow ride on the LT.