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Loft in shed
You're probabaly gonna end up with what's called a two-post lift rated well over 2K, and big enough to store a car on. I've seen them in magazines for less than a grand. Beter have the concrete floor beefed up (read: designed to handle load) though.
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Loft in shed
Peters I wasn't sure if he was driving off the lif and omto the loft or mezzanine. So no, the two poster nor the 4-poster would work for one reason (aside from the lifts not being designed for rolling weight: momentum. Any rolling weight on the platform that has to accelerate either on or off the paltform will tend to collapse the lift unless heavily braced against the torque. Then the other question is: how the heck are you going to build a cost-effective loft or mezzanine to support not only its own weight but other stuff? 3/4" just ain't gonna do it even on 12" centers IMHO. Going back to the lift thingy, I was visting a friend in elevated home here on the coast. It's up on 8" sq. x 10' pilings--about 20 of them. I'm sitting at the kitchen table while my buddy closes the frig door and walks fast about 4 feet and stops abruptly and went back (forgot his beer)---like anyone would do. Once he stopped the entire house shook and swayed back and forth. And that's what's possible with a lift and/or loft if not designed and built properly to support alot of weight.
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Loft in shed
Frank I'd be tempted to make a mock-up loft floor with a piece of plywood supported between two 2x4's--I think you'll be surprised...err...disappointed how much it deflects--even just standing on it, let alone a 2000lb. Gator.
Angle bracing from the posts to the floor is imperative to reduce wracking. I feel the floor might need two layers of 3/4"--just my opinion.
You must be a rich man to afford those lam-beams, eh?
You might want to consider metal web (all angle or angle with rod webs) trusses. Sometimes you can get them from old farms or commercial demolitions for just taking them down. And they're relatively light enough to put up with a tractor loader. And they'll span farther than the lam-beams. If they're not the right size you can modify them easily--though a purist (and a lawyer) would say they have a designed-in crown and shouldn't be modified. If they're too long to drag home cut 'em in half and weld them back together (consult an engineer buddy for the wisest way).
The other way of making that floor is use the steel trusses and lay down corrugated metal, and pour mesh-reinforced lightweight concrete down like what is used in commercial applications.
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Loft in shed
Franky--as I read your list of stuff I stopped my tally at 10,000 lb. Personally, based on what you want to store up there, you might get your you-know-what caught in the wringer so to speak if your insurance agent finds out (um, I think "ballastic" is the word I'm looking for) what you have in the barn up on a second floor...the easy way (you tell him) or the hard way (a catastrophe happens) if it collapses. I'd look at not doing the second floor and just surround the inside walls with warehouse-style pallet shelves. It makes it soooo easy to see and pick things off the shelves with stuff on pallets or pallet boxes or pallet basket/cages. Shoot, absent a hi-lo, for the small stuff you could make a roll around ladder like Lowes has or like a library has for high shelves. I've been to many a scrap yard back home that had the shelving from closed Home Quarters, Costco, and Sam's Clubs that was just sitting outside rusting.
Yes you might have to buy a forklift (a few years ago a forklift rebuilder wanted to GIVE me something like 60 plus hi-los but I passed because scrap was only .5 cent a lb.) You might want to consider a high-reach electric one with good batteries (bad batteries will cost thousands to replace). Quiet. Doesn't drip oil. No exhaust. If you have a skid steer you could easily adapt a used hi-lo mast to one---talk about practical!
If the pallet-style shelving is a no-go, then I'd take the money and just add on to what you have---which compared to the loft will likely be cheaper, quicker, and handier in the long run no to mention resaleability---and lower insurance premiums. Maybe KTompson can weigh in on the insurance aspect since that what he does for a (really good!!) living.
But I'm jis' sayin'
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Loft in shed
Frank, I realize there are many factors --seen and unseen---that drive insurance rates (right, Kenny?  ) including your agent which can work for...or against you (right Kenny? ). And it doesn't necessarily have to happen to you for the can of worms to open on your situtation---the farmer down the road had a similar barn like yours and it internally collapsed---so now EVERY barn in the area is suspect. For example: back home a trucking company dumped 20,000 yds of asbestos-contaminated fill. The land owner went after their insurance company. So what was done by one trucking company makes us all in the area suspect--and a potential risk. Insurance agents starting sending questionaires to their commercial clients--like me---demanding to know who, what, where, and how much my fill dirt was going. In my case it was simple: I told them I don't haul dirt! (that was what they wanted to hear)
My point is if you build what will have to be a massively sturdy structure, it could get messy (if required) with engineer/architect costs, permits, inspections, risk assessment insurance premiums, etc. and that's why I was leaning toward a straight-forward stacked pallet storage system in an addition to the barn. You could make a dedicated pallet just for the Gator! It'd be like the old Hot Wheels storage case of the '60s, remember those?
But like I always say..."I'm jis' sayin'"
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