I learned a lot about pipe bursting when I had my 210' water line replaced last week. The guy had a puller made locally. I can find the manufacturer if you're interested. The thing about this puller was that it had a large steel wheel which turned the cable 90* so the pull was vertical. There was a removable guide section which allowed use of pulling machine in small trenches. He excavated out a 4' hole, which was just enough to lower the puller in, and give him a little room to work. He had a portable pump powered by a 20hp Honda engine. The valve was another unit on a folding hand truck. He used his mini-ex to dig the hole, position the power unit and lower the puller. He hooked the hoses up and either had a helper run the valve, or he collapsed the hand truck and ran himself from the ditch.
The puller was pretty slick. It was held together with pins so it could be disassembled and lowered into position piece by piece, if necessary. The key to a good pull is to to pull exactly in the direction of the pipe you are replacing, not up or side to side. We had to use cable clamp attached to the mini-ex bucket to get enough slack to run through the puller. I don't think we could have used the mini-ex to do the entire job without a lot more excavating.
It can be a slow and tedious process. My water line had been repaired several times with bronze fittings. A puller will not bust them. Sometimes when bursting plastic pipe it did not split cleanly, and folded up like an accordion in front of the machine. If you get the bullet too far into the machine, you have problems which require disassembly of the puller. It was an education.