The main lifting factor is human effort, fine as long as its well planned and executed. On stick frame jobs I've been hurt when too few men tried to tackle more than they could, when one person loses heart in a pinch everyone else suffers. From something I read once it was common in communities of old to see men who were victims of a lift gone sour. If you are a good planner, communicator and excell at directing groups then it works fine. I prefer to let some form of machine do the heavy work and I control it. I'm more a creature of the deep woods and don't care for the frenzy of groups. Although I don't care for the time pressure it instills, if I need to a crane is my preference.
This shot is a windlass gin we rigged up to tip up a few bents. Using a simple machine my wife and I tipped these up, no hurry, no flurry, no liability. No one is in the path of a drop, a cable failure could still get us I suppose, we were at a fraction of the working load of the cable. A runaway windlass handle was probably my greatest concern. A round windlass wheel and ratchet catch would lessen that possibility greatly