I have both a dethatcher and York rake (with gauge wheels) from Heavy Hitch and they are both useful tools that are surprisingly complimentary in tasks.
The dethatcher/pine needle rake is good at gathering loose light material. I use it to... well, dethatch, rake pine needles, and clean up our horse paddock. On the yard, when I run it under the pine trees at the edge, I'm always surprised at how big a pile of pine needles it'll gather up. I'll gather them into a line and then run it in reverse to push the whole line into a pile and then into the compost, and it's surprisingly effective at this. It's not very aggressive on the ground itself so I can drag it on bare dirt to collect the loose hay without gouging the ground, and again, push it into big piles and the collect with the bucket. It's also good at breaking up the clumps of horse poop and spreading them out over a larger area to fertilize.
It's not good at pulling heavy material behind it. Once the pile gets heavy enough to overpower the spring tension of the tines and weight of the implement, it can't collect any more, and you'll have to either dump what you're dragging, or keep pulling and do another pass. And another. And another... So while it's really good at dry, light materials, it's terrible at wet, heavy, dense stuff.
The york rake is fairly the opposite - it's good at pulling heavy materials and other "heavy duty" tasks. It weighs a lot even without ballast, and is very aggressive on the ground. I couldn't see using this effectively without a hydraulic tilt capability and the gauge wheels, unless you were only needing it for trail clearing and maintenance, or on rough field work. A neat trick with the HH version is that I can attach it to the 2" receiver in my fork frame and use it on the front - the float and curl functions on the FEL are effectively the same as the 3-point hit with a hydraulic top link - though the weight of the FEL arms add a *lot* of weight, and you can't tilt.
It's hard to tell which is right without seeing your setup. I'm thinking the best comparison is to take some hand rakes to the materials and see what works best. If thin tines like a leaf rake are working well, the dethatcher would likewise do a good job. If you're using something heavier duty like a rock rake, then the York rake seems better suited.
If budget affords, you could try both, especially if you might have a use for them after (they are handy for lots of cleanup jobs!) - it's kinda fun to run the york rake on the FEL and the dethatcher on the rear at the same time. Or you could start with one and see how it does, the dethatcher is significantly cheaper. Renting might be a good option if you really only plan to use it for this one job, or finding used and reselling after if you get lucky.
