HeyUvaVT - I'm clearing 88 acres in Louisa. I've cleared and seeded the first 35, which was in planted pines (11 yr growth that wasn't done right). I had the remaining 53 timbered and now I'm working on the first 17 of that tract. I bought a CAT 963 for the first 35. It's a 1982 with a reman engine and new undercarriage, both of which were 1 year old at the time. Last August, I bought a 320C excavator.
Depending upon your circumstances and certainly in my case, I found that I needed both pieces of equipment to do the job. The excavator for stumping and lifting material (a thumb is a must) and the loader for pushing.
My problem now is the finer cleanup stuff. I don't want to doze the land and scrub off the topsoil, yet when I scrape with the loader bucket teeth, some of the debris makes it through the teeth and is left--it's time consuming to do the finer cleanup. I'm now looking for a rake type bucket where the tines are closely spaced. That should make for a much finer cleanup job.