avek and KenHammer,

The AirFlorida situation was a strange one. The pilot TRIED to push back using thrust-reverse, but actually was unable to. Nevertheless, it sure kicked up a huge amount of snow, which covered the pitot tubes in the intake nacelles. As a result, they weren't registering the correct thrust values. The pilot took off with too little thrust. That, combined with icing on the upper surface of the wings, did them in.

Thrust-reverse pushback wasn't used much at all until after deregulation, when airlines were looking for ways to cut costs. I'm strongly inclined to believe that it shows up as a short-term cost savings, but a long-term money drain.

Engine maintenance is expensive just in terms of parts and labor, not to mention the fact that a plane in the shop is earning $0 for the airline. The cost of a ramper and tug is relatively low, even when you factor in the benefits package.

For this very reason, I've taken to using thrust-reverse pushback as a gauge of how well the airline is being run. Thrust reverse = short-term management; tugs = long-term management. That's diminishing in usefulness as the number of fuselage-mounted-engine aircraft decrease, but it still is useful for those airlines flying DC-9 series and Fokker twinjets.

Granted, this is only my opinion, but I'd be happy to share the information I've collected over the years that back up that opinion.