The rating isn't the most important thing to me--the speed is. Most of the time you might pull out only a third of the cable maybe on a typical 100' spool--if that. It probably drops 1,000# in rating per layer of cable so if you take a 6,000# winch and cut the cable in half and crimp 2 loops onto it, then you are going to be where a typical 8,000# winch is most of the time and have the half cable for when you need it. ANother advantage to that idea is that the spool has a lot of free space so you can let it heap up on one side of the drum if you need to--like pulling across a slope.
I had a couple of those Harbor Freight deals. The first I had a long time before it died--the second died quickly. They are slow as hell and can be very frustrating to use. Their slowness contributes to their burning up I believe--you run them mercilessly because they are so slow. A fast winch only needs to run seconds at a time.
On my Harbor Freight winches I mounted the solenoids under the hood of the truck. The motor and gearbox are waterproof--I checked them occasionally since I leave my truck out in the rain. They just seem to grind themselves up. I use mine constantly for pulling logs and frequently have it stalled out. Pulling a truck free usually takes very little effort it's nice to have a fast winch so you don't roll over the cable.
http://www.superwinch.com/EPi9_9_000_lbs.html
I have an Epi 9.0 and it was only $600 shipped from some jeep site. Jegs has cose to that deal. They are very similar to Warns XD9000i
http://www.warn.com/truck/winches/src/XD9000i.shtml but a lot cheap and a bit faster.