It is your right to disagree. It is your property and you can do whatever you want on it. I deal with your kind every day. Guys want to call up and get an estimate and then they say they can do it themselves. Well, we (arborists/professional tree services) are the people they call when they don't want to take a chance.
I am not sure why you took offense to my comment but hey I guess you pulled a couple of trees and think you can do it whenever you feel like it. How many trees have you rigged down without a piece of the tree hitting the ground?
Go back to the beginning of the thread and re-read the whole thing. I am sure you have seen so much more than the rest of us on your farm. Like trees in which people built a deck around it and now need it out. Or trees that were planted and then came the powerlines, fences, landscaping, pools. I am sure you have seen it all.
The original question was whether it was an acceptable practice. I think it is an acceptable practice.
A few post later someone mentioned it was "unprofessional". I responded that you need to be a professional to know when to use each particular method (i.e. climbing and rigging, bucket and rigging, blocks, multiple blocks, winches, trucks, skidders, dozers, 5 in 1, grcs, rope pullers).
You go throw your rope in all the trees you want. You are not a professional if you do not do this full-time. If you think you are but you don't do it full-time, then why? Is it a hobby?
You have to understand what arborists deal with everyday. I would say that most of the calls we get are not for trees in which we can simply pull them over. Being a professional, in my opinion, is knowing when to pull a tree over (i.e. not taking a huge risk to save time by pulling a rotten tree or heavy leaner) and when to bring it down in another manner.
Loggers use this method all the time but I would never let them do it there way on one of my jobs. I have seen them spin out due to not putting their cables high enough. Putting a cable 20' up a 100' tree with a good lean is not a smart thing.