When you're talking about a 30 yr old combine with over 2000 hrs on it hrs matter way less than condition.

A 1460 with 4000 hrs may have had almost everything replaced in the last 500-1000 hrs and be in better shape than a 1460 with 3000 hrs that has had very little done to it as far as replacing major items.

FWIW our 1640 has ~3300 hrs on it and I'm not at all scared to run it for a while yet.  It has had some work done to it and will need more done to it but it is easy to work on if you have any mechanical skills at all.

  It will likely be here until we need a bigger combine.

 a Massey 850 or 860!

I hope that is a joke!  I know there were some guys around here who went from fairly low hour 750/850/860 combines to much higher hour Axial Flows and saw about a 90% reduction in down time.

I would like to know why that is so important to be able to have the rotor on the ground that fast.  Everybody I know that has a rotary has never had the rotor out of their combine. 

I know guys who have been running the same AF for 10 to almost 20 years and never had the rotor out.  I've collected some old combines including an Gleaner A2.  It has the "stick" like you described.  But it has some slop in it and one of the rods is bent.  No doubt it was innovative but what was wrong with have a couple of levers on the steering console or beside you like on the Masseys.  The ones on my 95 and 55 are still tight and work great. 

I think your statement sums it up pretty good.  Both are good machines.  My experience is on the 20 series but I wouldn't have a problem taking a IH 14 series over a Massey or Gleaner of that era.  Now I live and farm in the wheat belt so I don't know about corn and beans.  But I will put the samples that came out of our 8820s against any machine out there new and old and even current JD combines.  Yes they have lots of moving parts and belts.  But if you do some good maintenance to them, they will run just as long as any Axial Flow between breakdowns.  Plus you have to love that starting motor they had for reversing the feederhouse when JD had a real one.  I have enough neighbors running AFs to know they break down too in the field.  Our 8820s have been the most reliable and best cleaning combines we ever had.  I know they are not the most comfortable to run now.  But the 8820 was the first combine I ran by myself (12 years old).  I thought it was a good begginer's combine because the cab was closer to the left side so I could see the end of the header so I wouldn't leave skips or run into the truck when unloading on the go.  The crude (road grader) type levers I thought at the time were great because I felt more control through them then flicking a switch.  We run a couple of JD 9770s now but still have one 8820 left.  Its a dinosaur compared to today's machines.  But 3 years ago we couldn't get a 2nd combine to lease right away.  So we had to dig the 8820 out.  All we did was change oil and grease her up.  Ran 1,200 acres through it before our lease combine showed up.  In those 1,200 acres, only breakdowns was one of the injector lines springing a leak and the wire broke off the electric clutch.  Not bad for a 28 year old combine.