I was in same boat as you, we farm, very little(160 acres) so we had an ag tractor. It was an old case 2470, 3 speed power shift pulled an old 9 yard scraper that was converted to hyd. Did ok, my main concern was life out of tractor, any major repairs were going to be more than tractor was worth. Looked into self propelled scrapers, mainly Deere since that is all we run. Most of them have been out of production for at least 25 yrs. my cons on a self propelled were age, parts availablity, cost of break downs/repairs, have to have dozer and another machine to up keep. I would a cat 65d for a good price and a 12 yard Reynolds . I have right around 23k in them, it can flat out move dirt. 12 yard is way to small for tractor, it is a 12’ cut. If I would do it again, find a 18-20 yard with a 10’ cut.
Not sure you said nothing smaller than a 28 yarder....have to be a big tractor and a big pocket book for scraper