IIRC the OP mentioned mowers and drive motors on the 'front' wheels, so I'm picturing those 'backward' SCUTs with decks hanging out front going down hills with the rear wheels steering (?) when those fronts dig in & the whole shebang tips forward. Scary if the 'rear' ones are non-steering casters and more like just following or landing at random. On a tractor it's the rear wheels that grab when you release a HST pedal and the ones the brakes are stopping when you use them.
btw: A HST will 'bog' going up a hill
if you give it more 'pedal' since doing so is sliding literally into a higher gear. IMO anyone belaboring this
ingrained response should be perfectly happy with a shuttle-shift and foot throttle. With HSTs a dab at the throttle, easing up on the HST pedal,
or choice of a lower range are options, but often only one of these is needed.
HST must share hp with steering & hydraulics, and though it seems to lose a fair bit of its own portion to 'inefficiency', how often must the engine's entire effort go just to the driving wheels? I don't ever run at WFO rpm, and the convenience is a small trade-off of something I have more than enough of remaining to spin the tires.
At the very least, we retirees will often prefer using just one hand and one foot to operate as we lose our physical flexibility. Call us lazy, but we might also be more interested in buying a pre-owned tractor
without the fear of having to split it to replace a clutch that may be on its last legs. That said, if there were no such thing as HST, I'd bet as many of us adherents would be
'shuttle or nothing' guys.
