My buddy ran a dredge down near St. Louis for years and he told me about a similar setup on a old converted barge. Said the single spool was a nightmare at first because the cable would birdnest if you didn't keep tension just right. He burned through a whole spool in one season before he figured out the trick was matching the line size to the load or something like that. After that he loved it though, swore he could swing that bucket into spots the other guys couldn't reach. He moved on to a different outfit and still talks about that winch like it was his first truck.

I was the same way for years, swore by my kicker and thought power stretchers were for guys who could not get the hang of a proper kick. Then a buddy let me borrow his on a big berber job and it opened my eyes. The kicker gets it tight at the wall but you lose all that tension once you move over a few feet, the stretcher holds it across the whole room. That is why your ripples came back at 6 months, the backing relaxed and there was nothing holding it. Bought my own used one not long after and my callbacks dropped to almost nothing too. I still keep the kicker on the truck for closets and small stuff but for anything with real size it is not even a question anymore.