Finally rented one of these.
My local Taylor rental had two units, and this one could be switched from horizontal to vertical. The recommendation of the place was to use horizontal for everything but logs that are so heavy that they cannot be lifted. So that's what I did.
Nothing fancy - Honda GX power. It was so small I couldn't even see it in any of the mirrors on the truck while towing. Which means backing up is pretty much a non-starter.
I almost took the Roadmaster but the nice thing about the truck is, I don't care how dirty I am when I get in.
$70 for 1/2 day or $105 for full day. They gave me like 5 hours for the 1/2 day which I thought was pretty good. I did not catch what the ton rating was so it's hard to compare to what a new one costs, but there aren't too many options below $1000, if that helps. I could rent it 14 times before I got to $1000, which would be over a period of, well, probably 14 years. And I wouldn't have to maintain or repair it.
Total splitting time was probably on the order of 3 hours. It barely used any gas, too. The return valve auto holds so you can put it in reverse and go grab another log, which is handy, except my stuff is all short due to my small stove so most of the time I'd manually run it back to 12".
Being a smaller unit it was also manageable to wheel around my yard by myself. Though that really only works if you have a pretty flat area to push it around.
Log splitting
Log splitting
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