Todd:
If you have front hydraulics, look into a grapple bucket. It makes moving things MUCH easier. You could have moved that brush pile in an hour or so with a grapple bucket depending on how far you had to move it. Can you change buckets easily? JD has a system for quick attaching front implements, so switching between buckets, plow, etc. is a 5 minute deal. I use JD as an example because that's the only one that I have experience on, besides Kubota.
Making the rear wider will help with stability.
We have a quick attaching bucket, pallet fork, and hay spears for our 7810 John Deere. Our loader is also a quick attach and deattach. The total time to remove the loader is less than 5 minutes.
I second the comments on the grapple. So handy when moving brush.
