Just doing a quick Google search, it appears the later is built rather "chintzy". The front wheels/axles look like it wouldn't take much to bend them. The pivoting handle looks more like a solution in search of a problem, Plus the "anti vibration feature?" looks like it would be more of an annoyance and may be prone to loosening as you mow. Just my 2 cents.

In addition to seeing the cylinder, you can also see if the exhaust port is carboned up. This would be a problem in addition to a blocked muffler screen if the motor doesn't rev up properly to high speed.

We like to do lots of camping, so to keep the costs down we always split a site with another family. We've only exceeded the eight person California State Park limit one time when both my husband and my friends husband were there at the same time. Of course, five of those were kids age 6, 5, 4 and two 2 year olds. I don't think that they (especially the toddlers) make as much of an impact as nine adults do. I am a bit nervous about an upcoming trip to Yosemite though since we're exceeding the limit by one person. We'll have two adults and five children. We're traveling together in one vehicle and probably sharing a tent though, so hopefully we won't have to worry about getting reprimanded by the rangers.

Hippy is correct, I'm talking RVs here for folks who don't wrench their own. Your Silverado has a great Allison transmission that's the gold standard, IMHO. There's a hill of difference in labor between an auto or truck and an RV with an engine in it. The Left Coast is very mountainous and it gets old fast to be on an incline pulling your boat/quads/trailer/horses at 45 and be passed by a DuraMax doing 75. And you'll wish you were getting 12 mpg pulling that horse trailer at 45. The current GMC engines are 200,000 mile designs (Sierra, Silverado, Tahoe, Suburban, Yukon) and the diesels (DuraMax) are 500,000 mile designs. Teardrops will have lower height which will pay off in mileage and many nicer campsites will be an option, where the truck campers (popups and crankups excluded here) will be scraping a few branches or down in the meadow. Of course, it's easier to back up a truck camper so there's a world of options out there. I've sold a ton of GMC trucks and as a Ford man let me say they're hard to beat.