I was using the corner of the bucket to dig into the small shelf of soil along one side of my dirt woods roads to borrow some fill material. Once I'd collected a bucketful I transported to my build site. It was not taxing the tractor that much as it were. A back blade or a box scraper, both of which I have, don't work for the position the material was located in this case. I knew what worked...
IMO, the bucket job was not a cause of damaged clutch as I look back, it was when I noticed some slippage and thus the smell. If you cannot dig a bit of soil with what's a 5,000# machine then somethings off? Fact is that tractor has a small clutch that also fits at least a dozen or so various brands/models of similar sized tractors.
As for using a 3pt hitch to handle logs, Not seen that done much and hardly logical. At my age and given my tractor experience I may not know it all but I have been around the block just a ways.