If your into mud riding, you might want to consider the Grizzly with the diff lock, otherwise i'd go with the Rancher AT with IRS, EPS, and Traxlox. The wife has one, it was a good trail machine until I did a gear change on it, now she can play in the mud whenever she wants too. The problem I found with the Rancher is that it is geared for trail riding and is geared way too high for slow, mud crawling or water crossings. With the gear change it turned it into an entirely different beast.
My next wheeler is probably going to be a 700 Grizzly since Honda doesn't want to build a Foreman with IRS.
The Rincon would be Honda's equivalent to a 700 Grizzly. The Rincon has IRS and a superior transmission IMO. The only downside with the Rincon is in hilly, mountainous terrain. That and that it lacks power steering.
I know all about the Rincon, my best friend has one and honestly, as much as I love my Hondas, I do not like that Rincon. It is geared for trail use and has no low end grunt when your going through a lot of mud and I believe it only has 3 gears too but I could be wrong on that. The only Honda made for hard work and hard riding is the Foreman, it's geared low enough to go through just about everything BUT, no IRS.
As too the question about the ES on the Rancher, going into reverse can be a pia but that can be cured by a simple adjusment to your brake cable. I adjusted the wifes and it goes in reverse quite easily now. You can also adjust it so you don't have to push down on the red button but it's not that big a deal pushing the button.
