Yes and yes. Works great.

Thanks. Do you rake it all up, lay down the seed then put the material back on top or just leave half of it on the ground and then seed/fertilize over it?

I remove it all and put it back on top. If you have a large area, a lawn sweeper will help a lot.

I'm doing about 7k sq ft and don't have one and local rental place doesn't either. Can I use a leaf blower or go over it with my mower and bag the clippings?

You can try, see how it works out. Or you can always just rake.

Your mower will bag a large amount of the thatch, just not 100% of it

This is a great idea I never thought of. Seems like it would be super easy to spread

+1 to using the mower bagger to get up the thatch.

Just curious, what if some of the thatch includes not completely dead weeds such as common bermuda? Will Jon introduce weeds back into his lawn by using the thatch to cover the seeds?

Yes, you can do a really good job of spreading Bermuda that way. Same for Virginia Buttonweed. If you have a lot of perennial weeds, best to discard the thatch and use something else.

Thanks for the response j4c11. Your answer is what I thought but it is hard for me to throw away bags of good organic matter.

You can always compost it.