Hey Stridis,
you're right about the rototilt, but in my industry of tight access excavation (translate that to lots of domestic work where there's not as much money, or knowledge of excavation) there seems to be little appreciation or understanding of excavation tasks.
Many operators don't get attachments because it's difficult to recoup the investment. Too many customers think only of the hourly rate, and when you mention paying a bit more for an attachment that will save them money by getting the job done quicker or better or whatever, they think you are just trying to get more cash out of them. I've often tried to explain in detail about doing the job with and without a certain gizmo but most don't seem interested. It's incredibly frustrating knowing intimately what various attachments can do for the job but not being able to get that message across.
My basic grab for instance, well instead of me explaining go to my home built website
www.excavationtech.com.au (so don't laugh) and look at the page on the grab. There's a lot of on-the-job advantages but most times the customer doesn't seem to bat an eyelid. I might have shortened the job time considerably, thereby saving the customer money, and losing me money, but it doesn't seem to get noticed. I think in industry, where workers are involved with the bigger machinery day in day out, they understand the benefits of things like rototilts, etc, and will happily compensate the operator for his extra investment.
My biggest mistake was not starting out with at least a 5 ton excavator, but that's another story.