We have a Gehl (Manitou) 7-23T and we love the S**t out  of it. WAAAYYY better than a tractor and a loader for loader work, but worthless for tractor work. We have a set of forks ans a 2.75 yard bucket for it, along with skidsteer adapter from MDS. It cant replace a skidloader for some things, the view of the attachment isnt as good, but its better all around otherwise. If you do mostly fork work I would suggest a hydro one over the 4 speed like ours, it gets kind of herky jerky when only trying to move a little bit, but you can usually use the boom telescope feature instead which is what we do. Weve never had our stuck, and it will fill that bucket with dirt easily,   

Theres a hitch on the back but we rarely use ours, theres not much visability out the back window. One thing is power attach is a must have IMHO, boom lights would be nice also but could be added, A/C is a must, that cab gets HOT in a hurry and theres almost no air movement.  Ours has a split door that latches back, its really nice when you need to communicate, you dont have to have the door hanging open, newer ones have roll up windows though.

Your assessment of forklifts is correct in my findings too, 3 dogs pee in the same spot and theyre stuck, but they cant be beat on concrete or a really really well rocked and solid surface.