Dozer blade liftarm

I know I abused the dozer blade by putting too much down pressure on it. But I suspect I'm not the only one who has done so.

The picture shows how the metal lift arm bent over time. The replacement lift arm is alongside for comparison. The blade would not lift more than a couple of inches off the ground, causing me to dig up things with it everywhere I went with the tractor.

The final straw came when the pivot rod (for lack of a better term) weld broke. Interestingly enough, it looked like it had been repair welded sometime in the last 40 years or so.

Has anyone had an issue similar to this? Has anyone modified the lift mechanism to keep this from happening? I've already got a couple of ideas.