Yeah I don't think any make is immune to issues these days... Even some of the OEM Warn applications have experienced issues.We have ran Ramsey, Warn and MileMarker winches. All have had issues.
Thanks for the describing your other considerations. I read a bit more about the X-Bull and didn't catch that it was a 2-speed at first. I can see that being a useful function. Look forward to hearing about your experience with it. I'm probably a year or so away from needing one so I'm just gathering info at this point...