Sorry, forgot to answer one of your ?'s. The cons against some of the front deck mowers are that they aren't the best on hills. Other than that, I love the floating deck on the 700 series and the Mid Z's that I was talking about does not have that. Also, and here is the biggest con in my opinion, most all John Deere mowers except for the Z series have side baggers which in my opinion are terrible! If you are just cutting then they are great, but if you have to bag then I would definently look at the Z's because they have the rear dump system.