I slept on it last night and decided that I am going to use the Badland 12k winch instead unless someone comes up with a really good reason to plug on before 5:00 this evening. The approach angle problem is going to bother me forever.
Probably the right choice. As good as the 8274 is, it is hard to package on these newer vehicles due to how little extra room there is. On an older rigs it would be easier to recess into the front end due to how much extra space there is. There's a reason so many people are picking the 12k Badlands. They're cheap, work, and readily available.
People go nuts restoring Warn winches too.
Well consider me nuts (it's ok, I do too) cause that's one of my future projects. The F-100 has had an 8274 on a home made bumper for most of my life. IIRC dad got it from his step dad back in the 80s. He also got the truck from his step dad around the same time. I don't recall it ever actually being needed. In the early 90s he replaced the rotted out body with another he found locally, installed a three inch body lift, and built a custom winch bumper to mount the winch. Built out of a couple of 3" conveyor belt rollers, and flat steel plate. After installation it never got wired up, never even had the winch cable reinstalled. He was going to add extra support to make it "strong enough", but never got around to it before parking the truck, never needed to.
Part of the restoration of the truck will be restoring the winch, properly installing it, and making it functional. Not sure if I'm going to properly rebuild and renforce the home made bumper, or if I'm going to get a professionally built one. I want to fix up the ones he built, but not sure I can make them match with the rest of the restoration.
I got the 12k on sale with all the goodies for about the same as 9.5k at regular price. I haven't really strained it yet.
Got one of their 5000 lb units several years ago and mounted it on a receiver hitch that I've used a few times, would work better if I actually wired up the control pack instead of using a battery and jumper cables. I bought one of their 3500 winches on sale to put on my ATV. It worked well when I used it for the first time yesterday. Unfortunately the load was heavier than the ATV, but between it and liberal application of throttle in reverse I moved what needed to be moved.
Aside from the F-100 if I ever need a winch on anything else, it'll be a 12k Badlands.