Mike, I'm still trying to figure out if my own tractor has regeneration in the curl circuit, but it occurs to me that whether it does or not, the whole subject of back dragging could do with some discussion.
It is possible to backdrag without hurting the tractor, and it's a handy technique. Over the last 40 years we've done nearly as as much work backdragging as using the bucket going forwards. And no problems doing it so far.
Our land is mostly an old meandering stream bed, so it's actually got more rock than sand or dirt. That's no exaggeration; digging a hole always produces a larger pile of rocks than dirt. We end up stacking a lot of rocks and cherish the little bit of dirt. Rocks are mostly granite ranging from small to landscape size with something the size of a basketball or briefcase being the most common.
Anyway, we end up doing a lot of back dragging with the FEL bucket to smooth things out....it's just part of what we've always done. It's just about impossible to push a bucket forwards anyway when there are lots of rocks, so back-dragging is the main trick we have to use any time we want to get a bucket full of material.. Depending on the shape of the bucket and the angle the lip makes with the ground, back dragging can be used to bury the small stuff or to expose and loosen the "soil". Back dragging can even be used to roll the larger rocks up out of the ground. With all the back dragging we do, we've never had a problem with beating up the loader. The trick is to keep the angle of the bucket as shallow as the work will allow and go slow allowing the weight of the front of the tractor to do the work. Sometimes for final smoothing we backdrag with a loaded bucket. The shape of the back edge and bottom of the bucket makes a difference too.
My own next project is to adapt a SSQA to the front loader so that we can back drag using an angling grader blade or use a rock rake in place of the bucket. That ought to be real interesting. Who knows, we might even end up plowing in reverse!
enjoy,
rScotty
