It's very simple, which hopefully means less to go wrong and less to fix. However as Joe said, using a gearbox means there is one rather vulnerable item that is expensive to repair. I don't like slipping-belt clutches either, because they wear out belts and pulleys fairly quickly. For a ride-on to keep using when it is 20+ years old, with only home repairs, I like the Greenfield design best of the ones I've seen. That isn't because it is marvellously reliable, it is because it is easy to fix, year after year.
