I'll add my standard perspective: buy the winch your buddys have. In other words, if your friends all have Warn (hopefully), buy a Warn.

We had a guy really stuck/broken on Fordyce Trail. There were three of us winching on-and-off, but the Jeep in best position to do the heavy winching needed a few spare parts before the day was done. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/shiner.gif" alt="" /> If we all didn't have interchangable parts, it would have been a bummer.