In my opinion, a blade only loses to a snow blower in a couple situations. First, deeeeep (talking over the blade deep) snow. A blade will do it, but it'll take longer. Second, if you have a large area to clean. Again, a blade will do it, but it'll take longer. However, wet heavy snow is best handled by a blade. A blower will do it, but you have to go slower. It all comes down to this for me: the blade, in my opinion, is a lot more foolproof than a blower. Less moving parts, less to wear, less to go wrong. It can get in and out of tighter spaces, as well. Ideally, if I had my way (like I did last winter), I'd have a blade on one machine, and a blower on a another. I only HAD to break out the blower I think twice last winter, but when I did, I was glad I had it. BUT I also went through several belts and a gear box. Guess you call that "working out the kinks"
I did switch it between 2 tractors a couple times so I had to "settle it in" each time. But by the end of winter, it was working great. My biggest complaint was wind! There was one spot in particular I had to do that was like a wind tunnel, and for some reason, no matter which was I blew it, it always came back on me at one point or another. After just an hour of blowing snow at work, I'd be soaked to the bone and froze. Ok, that's enough
from me.
Edit: Oh, yeah, they'll both fit your machine