Indeed, Cub Cadet is made by MTD.
Personally, I find hand warmers to be more of a nuisance than anything. We got temperatures in the range of -30C here, and I don't have hand warmers. Although the snowblower does save you a lot of effort, operating that kind of machine still involves at least some effort, which I find is sufficient to keep my hands warm inside my gloves even under these arctic temperatures!
I did not try the "Touch & Turn" mechanism in a real-life environment, but I did try it out at a local dealer when I was shopping for a snowblower back in september. It worked well in the showroom, and it does look a lot like the mechanism available on some Ariens models, which does work well. This feature is absolutely necessary if you don't want to waste too much effor turning the machine around.
If you read a couple of posts around here, you will learn that although tracks give superior traction and better scraping of the pavement, they make the machine harder to turn, and they are overkill on flat pavement.
Me, for $200 more, I would go for the Cub Cadet. It has a more powerful engine which can probably through snow further and help to spread it out more evenly. I currently own an Ariens 1130DLE with an automatic differential, and that helps a lot in turning the machine around. My neighbor has an older Craftsman and I need to wrestle with that thing to turn it around. No matter what the system is, you got to have something to help you turn the machine around easily, espescially if you are going to have your wife or your 78yo dad use it. The more powerful engine will definitely help with the EOD pile, espescially if it is really 3-4 feet high like you describe! Also, the Cub Cadet has this bright yellow paint job on it... Sweet!
