My Equal-I-zer hitch has performed flawlessly under a wide variety of situations. As far weight distribution and sway control, it's been awesome.
You do not have to remove the bars to backup. On top of that, once you've unhitched, you can actually leave them attached to hitch and pushed up close to the rear bumper of your tow vehicle. They stay out of the way and don't get lost.
It does have its drawbacks though. As already mentioned, it can be a noisy in some situations despite being properly lubed. Perhaps a bigger annoyance, in my mind, is that it tends to be messy due to that grease.
When I upgrade to a new trailer, I will be looking very closely at other hitches, especially that Blue Ox.