Its easy to say- "I'll just derate my 60 ton for the small jobs", but it really doesn't work out that way, in the real world, very well. If you're having to drag a 60-70 ton truck crane into a muddy site to set trusses, and all you have to pull it with is the framers 10k forklift, you are sure going to wish you had a smaller crane.
I also don't know that the difference between a 95' or 110' main boom, when comparing a tms 700 to a grove 500/ terex 340, is a real deal breaker. If you can't reach it with 95' main, you probably aren't reaching it with 110' either. Learn to swing a jib.
If you study the charts on the 115' main tms540's that you are talking about, you'll find out that its really too much boom, for no more ctw. than it has, the chart falls off fast at radius.
Part of this equasion, is you and what you want to do. I've got a buddy that thinks I'm crazy with my old truck cranes, he runs new boom trucks and loves their speed and ride up and down the road, scooting from job to job. He wants new, so he doesn't have to work on anything. He's in a much flatter terrain than I am, so the 24' outrigger span doesn't bother him, where that's a real deal breaker for me. I don't mind working on my older stuff, its simpler than the new stuff, and I don't have any factory/ dealer support where I am located either. So for me, a lot of the older simpler stuff works out better.
If you are debating whether a 2001 tms760 or a terex t560 is going to be more reliable than a 1996 tms 640, I'm going to say there won't be any difference. They all need work at that age. The 1996 will have maybe a little less electronics on the engine. It will be about the same on the control systems. Terex is really bad about parts, Grove is headed that way, but not nearly as bad. Condition means more at that age than years do. Budget is a consideration also. Whatever amount you have to buy the crane with, you need to have twice that amount for operating/ repair costs.
A decent 3 axle truck crane, or a 40 ton boom truck will do great amount of small crane work, and be on the edge of some commercial work. Getting into either one of those at under $100,000 isn't too hard. But you better be a mechanic also, because you will go under, if you have to pay someone to fix anything that goes wrong. In some respects, a boom truck is nicer if you aren't a mechanic, because you can get a truck repair place to deal with the carrier issues, which is cheaper than a "crane" mechanic.
