This winch, Warn zeon, is designed to be mounted feet down or feet forward, so that's already been thought of by the manufacturer. I prefer to mount feet forward for reasons you said and so I could fill the gap between the radiator and bumper.
The way the bumper is bolted to the chassis also effectively has 8 shear points rather than the 4 of the winch mount (feet down) so I'm pretty happy it's up to the job.
I regularly use the same winch fitted to other vehicles at max. pull, mounted feet down and have never had an issue with the bolts. That's upwards of 4,500kg recorded on a load cell.