I have heard banana boom my whole life I just didn't want to be the one that said it here
There's pros and cons to each case doesnt have a performance disadvantage to deere or cat a salesman will tell you different but at the end of the day it all these machines are in the same weight class so the real performance capabilities come down to operator and a life long case guy can walk circles around a guy that's a life long cat guy if there both running case it's just how the glove fits you and how you learn to feel the machine
From an operator standpoint of current market machines case feel like a fish bowl with bad balance to me so I dont like them same with cat terribly top heavy to me especially when your jumping things it's also my opinion that deere makes an ok cab not my favorite but the machine balances the best out of the three to me.
I think the op asked a good question originally my follow up to that is now that mini exs and skid steers are taking huge chunks of what was the backhoe market are backhoes going to become more specialized or be phased out all together
Not for me, they won't.
I point out the customer who builds towers. He doesn't own machines, prefers to rent. The local rental company sends out machines non functional 95% of the time. He travels to Albany NY to rent functional machines. Then he pays an employee to run them.
One project was a 15 foot square hole, 5' deep. Sides & bottom had to be clean enough to pour full of concrete.
He said he wanted to rent equipment, but for some reason he asked me to do it.
In one day, I hauled in my backhoe, unloaded, dug the hole using batter boards, string to dig square, then laser to get the bottom flat. I placed his prefab galvanized tower base in the hole, while his employee fussed with it to be level. I moved all dirt removed from the hole, placing it on a stockpile 100 yards away. I was loaded & heading home before dark in November.
I pointed out he'd have needed a mini excavator for a day to dig, and a track loader to move the spoils. He'd have made four round trips to Albany & paid an employee for two days labor.
I charged $750.
I live 3 miles from another larger piece of land I own. I can be there in 15 minutes with a backhoe.